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LIFE'S 
TO-MORROWS 



TO-MORROWS 



By 
Junius W. Millard, D. D. 



PHILADELPHIA 

American Baptist Publication Society 

Boston Chicago Atlanta 

New York St. Louis Dallas 



J LIBRARY of COf 

ij Two Copies fietfcsv, 

I FEB 5 1908 

COPY 8, 



Copyright 1908 by the 
American Baptist Publication Society 

Published January, 1908 



ifrom tbe Society's own fpress 



TO 

ffilg flilotber 

WHO EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO FIRST LOOKED 
INTO THE FACE OF THE KING 



FOREWORD 

The following pages contain, as nearly as 
they can be reproduced, the substance of seven 
sermons which were delivered to large audiences, 
and their publication is the response to a unani- 
mous demand that they be put into this perma- 
nent form. The author makes no claim to 
originality. As a busy pastor he has gathered 
from various sources and hereby gladly acknowl- 
edges his large indebtedness to many men. The 
effort has been to rob death of its terror and make 
the life beyond a real fact in the everyday think- 
ing of the Christian. There is no subject of 
deeper human interest than the future of the soul, 
and no question of profounder personal concern 
than this, " My life and the future— what? " 

The object of the pages which follow is not 
idle discussion, but an earnest purpose to instruct 
and a keen desire to deepen an interest in these 
"last things." The quotations from the Bible 
in the volume are taken uniformly from the 
American Revised version. 

j. w. M. 

Atlanta, Ga., 1907. 



CONTENTS 

Page 
I 

Why Should I Shrink? An Investigation Into 
the True Nature of Death 1 1 

II 

Does Death End All? A Discussion of the Im- 
mortality of the Soul 27 

III 

Shall We Know Each Other There? An Inquiry 
•into Heavenly Recognition 47 

IV 

With What Body Do They Come? A Study of the 
Resurrection 63 

V 

Who Shall Be Able to Stand? A Consideration 
of the Day of Judgment 77 

VI 

Jerusalem the Golden. A Contemplation of the 
Glories of Heaven 91 

VII 

Is Punishment Eternal? An Inquiry into the 
Final Fate of the Wicked 109 



WHY SHOULD I SHRINK? 



"Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, 
he also himself in like manner partook of the same; that 
through death he might bring to nought him that had the 
power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver all 
them who through fear of death were all their lifetime 
subject to bondage." Heb. 2 : I4f. 

"And he {Stephen) kneeled down, and cried with a loud 
voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when 
he had said this, he fell asleep." Acts 7 : 60. 

" We are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather 
to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the 
Lord." 2 Cor. 5 : 8. 

" I will give diligence that at every time ye may be able 
after my decease to call these things to remembrance." 
2 Peter 1 : 15. 

" For I am already being offered, and the time of my 
departure is come." 2 Tim. 4 : 6. 



WHY SHOULD I SHRINK ? AN INVESTIGATION 
INTO THE TRUE NATURE OF DEATH 

THERE is nothing that brings such fear to 
the human race as the approach of death; 
even the contemplation of it brings horror. And 
yet there is nothing that the human family ought 
to be so familiar with as death, for the two have 
been associated for many, many centuries. Some 
people have overcome their fear of death, and 
have attained to a quiet serenity and calmness 
in the presence of their great foe, but these are 
few. Death, as such, strikes horror to the heart 
of mankind, and his march through the world 
is marked by bitter tears. 

A visitor to Athens should not fail to visit 
the ancient cemetery of that renowned city, for 
amid the ruins there he can catch more of the 
spirit of the ancient Athenians than in any other 
place. The monuments, some of which are un- 
usually well preserved, portray the daily lives of 
the people, and manifest their mental attitude 
toward the last great enemy. At the time most 
of these monuments were erected, the Greeks 

13 



14 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

had steeled themselves against sorrow by means 
of a rigid stoicism, and their calmness in the pres- 
ence of death is to be noticed upon every hand. 
One monument, which has been taken, with 
others, over to the neighboring museum for bet- 
ter preservation, is worth especial notice. It com- 
memorates the death of a youth who, quite nude, 
leans quietly against a column, while his aged 
father, whom he is about to leave, rests his elbow 
upon his staff and his chin upon his hand, gazing 
wistfully into the face of his departing son. The 
faithful hound droops his head in sympathy with 
the aged father. All is quiet and reposeful thus 
far, but in a corner of the monument a little child 
sits with his head bowed upon his knees and gives 
way to a torrent of tears. 

These two represent between themselves the 
attitude of all the world toward death; the 
aged may control themselves, and be too philo- 
sophical to weep, though the heart be nigh unto 
breaking, while the great majority indulge in 
uncontrollable grief. 

I. In many cases Christians are troubled more at 
the thought of dying than unbelievers. How often 
do you hear men who ought to be frightened 
at the thought of death, inasmuch as they are not 
prepared to meet God, say : " I am not afraid to 



WHY SHOULD I SHRINK? 1 5 

die." On the other hand, many are the Chris- 
tians who are well prepared to go to meet their 
Maker, who nevertheless shrink back from this 
King of terrors, and their last days are often 
rendered miserable by the thought that they must 
die. 

Of course, there are reasons for this. Chris- 
tians are more accustomed than unbelievers to 
consider the true meaning of death and eternity. 
The things which are not seen are realities to 
them. But the more forceful reason is suggested 
by the writer of Hebrews in the second chapter of 
that Epistle, the fourteenth and fifteenth verses, 
that the devil does not frighten his own victims. 
He soothes them. It is the " children " of God 
who are oppressed by the tempter with this great 
fear of death, for he seeks to rob them in this way 
of their peace. This was true of the saintly Dr. 
A. J. Gordon, for in his biography his son tells 
us of the fear and shrinking that characterized 
him almost to the last, but through the grace of 
God, before the end finally came, he won the 
victory, and there was clear shining after rain, 
and he died in triumphant peace. 

And so the fear of death has passed on to all 
men. The body naturally shrinks from dissolu- 
tion. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. 
There is a terrible loneliness about dying, for 



16 life's to-morrows 

when one puts the hand to the forehead and feels 
the death-damp there, it means that all who have 
borne company thus far through life must now 
stop. Into the river each one must step alone, 
and go out into eternity unaccompanied by mortal 
friend. And beyond it stretches the Unknown. 
Because of this, I know of no subject that is 
more worthy and practical than this one. Why 
should we shrink from death ? How be rid of the 
fear that unnerves us at its approach ? 

II. This fear of death can be removed only by 
the evangel of Jesus Christ. He became incar- 
nate for this very purpose, that " he might de- 
stroy him that had the power of death — that is, 
the devil — and deliver them who through fear of 
death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." 

Death has two aspects — physical and spiritual. 
As physical, it is the end to which all organisms 
are subject by their very nature. Natural science 
teaches us that. But to the Hebrew mind death 
meant a far different thing from what it means 
to the physiologist. He thought not so much of 
the physical dissolution as of the pain and sorrow 
and distress which accompany it, and especially 
of Sheol, the underworld — that drear, dread land 
of dark, dank shadows and choking dust into 
which death ushered the soul. Job spoke of death 



WHY SHOULD I SHRINK? 1 7 

as a " cutting down," and as a going the way 
whence he should not return. The Psalms speak 
of death as a returning to the dust, a going down 
into silence, into the pit, that nether world of 
bloodless, voiceless, hopeless being. To an ancient 
Hebrew this world, not the next, was the arena of 
activity, so that he could urge all, whatever their 
hands found to do, to do it with their might, 
" for there is no work, nor device, nor knowl- 
edge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou 
goest." Judaism stopped short off at the grave's 
brink. 

O brother man, is that your idea of death to- 
day? Do you draw back in horror and fear at 
the very thought of dying? If so, I call upon you 
to revolutionize your conception of death, for 
Jesus has changed all that. Hence, you will find 
in the New Covenant no such idea of death, so far 
as it affects believers in Jesus Christ, as that it is 
in anywise a cessation of being. 

III. With one or two exceptions, the New 
Testament never uses the words " death " or 
" dead " with reference to Christians, except in 
the well-known and current phrases, " resurrec- 
tion from the dead," and " being dead to sin." 
One such exception is found in the book of 
Revelation 14 : 13, " Blessed are the dead who 

B 



15 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

die in the Lord/' In almost every case where it 
has specific reference to the demise of a believer 
in the gospel some other word is used. 

i. One of these is the beautiful expression, 
" Fallen asleep." How beautiful the conception 
that believers who have passed off the stage of 
this life are only asleep. And how often it is 
used in the thought and speech of the world to- 
day. We cannot spare this from our Christian 
vocabulary. You pass into the room where a 
beautiful child is lying upon its bed. He lies so 
still and quiet that you are startled, and go 
quickly to the bedside, for fear that he is dead. 
Ah no; you find that he is only sleeping the 
undisturbed sleep of childhood, and you are re- 
lieved. Such was the message of Jesus to the 
world of his day. The people, trained in the 
ordinary conceptions of Judaism, were greatly 
troubled about their loved ones who had passed 
out of sight, but the message of the evangel 
comes, " They have not in anywise ended their 
being. They have come to no violent end. They 
are simply asleep until the day of awakening shall 
come by and by." Christ is unwilling for us to 
conceive of death as an end of things. The child 
asleep is the same child that was awake a mo- 
ment ago. So the believer who is " asleep " is 
the same that we knew and loved ; his life is not 



WHY SHOULD I SHRINK? 19 

ended; his existence is now as real as it was 
before, and we shall see him anon. 

Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep! 
From which none ever wake to weep; 
A calm and undisturbed repose, 
Unbroken by the last of foes. 

2. Another word used to describe the con- 
dition of the believer who has left this life is the 
word " absent." 

The teacher is calling the roll at the school, 
and when she calls little Jimmy's name there is 
no response. She repeats the name, and one of 
the little boys in school says, " Teacher, Jimmy 
is absent to-day.' ' The teacher does not wring 
her hands and weep. She does not put the school 
in mourning. She knows that it is well with 
little Jimmy. He is only absent. Indeed, he is 
absent from the school only because he is at 
home, and if there is a place where it is well for 
a boy to be, if he is not at school, that place is 
home. So Paul expressed the desire that he might 
be " absent " from the body, for that would be to 
be " at home " with the Lord. And there could 
be no more desirable consummation than that. 

3. Another word is the word " decease," found 
twice in the Bible ; first in Luke's account of the 
transfiguration of our Lord, when Moses and 
Elijah spoke to him of his " decease," which he 



20 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

was soon to accomplish at Jerusalem, and then 
in the first chapter of 2 Peter, where, as the 
apostle writes, that transfiguration scene is pres- 
ent with him, and he speaks of his own " de- 
cease.' ' The word is exceedingly suggestive 
when applied to the death of the Christian, for 
it is a word that we have heard before. It is 
in Greek the very word that has given its name 
to the second book of Moses, " Exodus." So 
death becomes for the believer an " exodus," and 
it comes to him with all the richness of sugges- 
tion that gathers about the exodus of the He- 
brews from the land of Egypt. To leave Egypt 
was to leave the land of bondage and want and 
disease and poverty and pass out under the lead- 
ership of God into the land of liberty and prom- 
ise, and a land that flowed with milk and honey. 
Their exodus was from the land of aliens to their 
own promised home. 

So " our citizenship is in heaven." For the 
believer death becomes an " exodus " out of this 
life of bondage and want and disease and pov- 
erty into that heavenly land of liberty and prom- 
ise, where there will be no more sorrow, or sigh- 
ing, or disease, or separations, and God will wipe 
away all tears from the eyes. 

4. The fourth word is the word " departure," 
used by Paul in 2 Timothy, fourth chapter, where 



WHY SHOULD I SHRINK? 21 

he says, " The time of my departure is at hand." 
The word he used was among the Greeks a nauti- 
cal term, and was used by the sailors with ref- 
erence to loosing the moorings preparatory to 
setting sail. A ship was not made to be tied up 
to a wharf. When thus tied, the ship chafes and 
tugs at her ropes, and frets to be off. A ship, 
the noblest of sights when at full sail upon the 
sea, looks out of place when taking on her cargo 
at the wharfside. And yet it is necessary for a 
ship to be tied up to a wharf at times. She must 
stay there long enough to take on her cargo. But 
let her stay no longer ; she was made for the open 
sea. Loose her now, and turn her prow toward 
her native element. A ship was made for the 
sea, and there she laughs at the storms and plays 
with the winds, for she is in her element. 

So is it with the soul. It was not made to be 
tied by a body of clay to this life of earth. Here, 
when so cramped and cribbed, it is not itself. It 
is, however, necessary for it to stay long enough 
to take on its cargo of character and experience 
and knowledge, but when enough has been gotten 
on board and the cargo is complete, cast off the 
rope that ties it down and let it go to God, its 
native element, for the soul was made to be with 
God, to enjoy him, and minister to his glory 
forever ! 



22 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

This then, is the Christian conception of death. 
We speak of it as the last great enemy, but it 
is a powerless one. Jesus has abolished death, 
and has brought life and immortality to light 
through the gospel. He came to deliver those 
who through fear of death were all their lifetime 
subject to bondage. Some things even death can- 
not do — it cannot remove us from the love of 
God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. All 
things, including death itself, are his who is 
Christ's. So Jesus in his gospel has made it 
possible for us not to shrink from death, but to 
approach it calmly and with happiness by re- 
moving altogether the sorrowful accessories that 
made it so horrible in the eyes of the ancient 
Jews. " The sting of death is sin," and Jesus 
cleanses us from all sin. Thus he steals its sting 
away. Physical death remains, but the mental, 
the spiritual, is gone. And physical death he has 
made a servant to summon his beloved into his 
presence. The believer shall never know death 
in its reality, nor does the unbeliever know any- 
thing of life, nor shall he ever know, till he puts 
his trust in Jesus Christ, the Lord of life. 

IV. But in our inquiry it is necessary that we 
go a step further. In the list of ancient worthies 
who have blessed the world by their lives of faith, 



WHY SHOULD I SHRINK? 23 

as given in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, we 
read in the thirteenth verse, " These all died in 
faith," where the literal meaning is, " These all 
died according to their faith." Their lives had 
been lives of faith. They died as they lived. 
The question of a happy death resolves itself into 
a question of a faithful life. 

We learn the same truth from the Ninetieth 
psalm, that wonderful scripture that has been 
read by so many death-beds and at so many open 
graves. It is the psalm which emphasizes the 
frailty of human life and the certainty of death, 
and yet it is the very psalm to lay emphasis upon 
a correct life, saying, in view of the reality and 
imminence of death, " So teach us to number our 
days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." 

Rev. Campbell Morgan says that in Philippians 
we have Christ presented to us in a fourfold way. 
In the first chapter he is the sum of life, in the 
second our example in suffering, in the third our 
eternal gain, while in the fourth he is our 
strength for all things. Now take the third chap- 
ter, in which he is presented to us as our eternal 
gain, and immediately you will see that Paul is 
speaking of life here and now, saying as he re- 
counts the list of his privileges in the flesh, 
" What things were gain to me, those I counted 
loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all 



24 LIFES TO-MORROWS 

things but loss for the excellency of the knowl- 
edge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have 
suffered the loss of all things, and do count them 
but dung that I may win Christ.' ' All life be- 
comes for him but a struggle for perfection for 
the sake of the eternal reward beyond this life 
to be given him by Jesus Christ. 

Take, again, the first chapter, in which Christ 
is our sum of life in this present world, for he 
says, " For me to live is Christ," and you will 
find him adding in that immediate connection, 
" To die is gain." Death is closely hinged upon 
life. Thus by many different roads do we arrive 
at the same destination, that for that man to 
whom Jesus has been his inspiration and his hope, 
his atonement, sustainer, and impulse for daily 
living, for that man death is gain, and it will be 
an easy thing to die. " Mark the perfect man 
and behold the upright, for the end of that man 
is peace." 

So then, if one would learn not to shrink from 
death, let him learn to pillow his head upon the 
promises of the Lord Jesus. " Blessed are the 
dead that die in the Lord." Blessed means happy. 
We began with Jesus; with Jesus we must end. 
You will want him in the evening of life, for the 
evening is a lonely time without company. You 
will look for him when the shadows gather, and 



WHY SHOULD I SHRINK? 2$ 

your earthly friends are all gone. You may not 
see any need of having him in life's high noon, 
when the sun shines brightly and your friends 
are many and all life is gay and roseate, but you 
need him just as much at that time, when all life 
is one holiday of promise as at the other, when 
you must go out into death alone. 

Doctor Westmoreland, one of the surgeons of 
the Civil War, was one day dressing the wound 
of a soldier who had been shot in the neck near 
the carotid artery. It was an especially danger- 
ous wound. While the surgeon was gently cleans- 
ing it, the blood vessel suddenly gave way. 
Quickly the physician put his finger into the 
aperture and stopped the flow of blood. 

The young soldier glanced questioningly into 
the surgeon's face and asked, " Doctor, what does 
that mean? " 

" It means death, my poor fellow," answered 
Doctor Westmoreland. 

For a moment the face was blanched and the 
eyes were closed, as if the man was stunned by 
the fatal words, when he looked up and calmly 
asked, " How long can I live? " 

" Until I remove my finger," answered the 
doctor. 

" Will — you wait a little," the young soldier 
asked, " till I — can send a word to my mother? " 



26 life's to-morrows 

The doctor bowed his head affirmatively. The 
soldier wrote his short letter, and then closed his 
eyes for a brief moment, and bravely looking into 
the physician's face, said quietly, " I am ready, 
doctor." 

" I removed my finger," said the surgeon, 
" and in a little while the brave fellow was dead. 
I would have given a great deal to save his life ; 
but he died like a hero." 

When a thing is certain, why don't we get 
ready for it? 

Nay, death, I'll fear thee not! Howe'er thou come; 
A skeleton horror with fixed stare intent, 
Or archer grim, threatening with dread bow bent; 

Or stern, inscrutable, and beckoning dumb, 

Compel my following; or, with hideous grin 
And amorous lipping, cause my flesh to creep, 
Until my shrinking senses faint in sleep; 

Or, clothed in scarlet like thy mother, sin. 

I'll fear thee not in any guise, for know, 
O death! that, terrible even as thou art, 
One doth hold sovereignty within my heart 

Far mightier than thou ; and even so, 
Yielding me thus to Him of Nazareth, 
Come as thou wilt, I'll fear thee not, O death ! 



II 

DOES DEATH END ALL? 



"If a man die, shall he live again?" Job 14 : 14. 

"And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and they buried 
him in the ascent of the sepulchres of the sons of David." 
2 Chron. 32 : 33. 

"And the dust returneth to the earth as it was, and the 
spirit returneth unto God who gave it" Eccl. 12 : 7. 

"For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this 
mortal must put on immortality" 1 Cor. 15 : 33. 



II 

DOES DEATH END ALL? A DISCUSSION OF THE 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 

REFERENCE was made in the last chapter 
to the cemetery of ancient Athens, and 
certainly a visitor to that city should not fail to 
see that most interesting spot. Athens is one of 
the most pathetic places in all the world, and to- 
day lies desolate in her ruins, having for centuries 
been at the mercy of the despoiler, so that one 
may see more of the artistic glories of that ancient 
city in the museums of Naples, Rome, Paris, and 
London than in the modern city that occupies the 
same spot. And yet it is well worth a visit, for 
there are still to be seen the splendid ruins upon 
the purple Acropolis, and here and there are 
remnants of some gigantic temple, an isolated 
column, an arch, and these for beauty and glory 
cannot be duplicated in all the earth. But per- 
haps the most interesting of all these ruins, and 
the one that best exemplifies the spirit of the 
ancient city, is the Ceramicus, or cemetery, just 
outside the sacred gate. 

Now, a walk through a cemetery of our day, 
even though it be one of the most beautiful, 

29 
v 



30 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

would hardly inspire one with an enthusiasm for 
art, but to have walked through the burial-place 
of the Athenians of the day of Demosthenes 
would have been like a visit to some art gallery, 
for one would have seen a veritable forest of 
tombstones of the most beautiful and artistic 
taste, and these would have been bright with 
color, while all around one could have seen the 
dark, shining leaves of the ivy, the whole so 
beautiful and so suggestive of life, that the grave 
and the terrors of death would have been quite 
forgotten amid the representations of the daily 
life of the Athenians, " and the contemplative 
sweetness of their farewells." On one of the 
monuments is a relief representing a youthful 
warrior, mounted on a splendid horse, in the act 
of killing an enemy with his spear, while the 
prostrate enemy is attempting to strike back. On 
another a beautiful woman is seated on a high- 
backed chair, with her feet resting daintily upon 
a little stool, while before her stands a gentle 
slave, who meekly holds a casket from which the 
proud mistress is selecting the jewels for the 
adornment of her last, long sleep. So all of them 
represent scenes of everyday life or of parting. 
A noble lady is attended by two slave girls, one of 
whom adjusts her sandals, while the other holds 
the jewelbox. Another sits on a seat of carved 



DOES DEATH END ALL? 3 1 

marble, holding a mirror in her lap. A mother 
bids farewell to her husband, while her little baby 
is held up for a parting glance, yet both husband 
and wife are tranquil and resigned. A boy leans 
upon the back of his dying mother's chair, while 
his father quietly holds her hand. Nowhere is 
there agony, or despair, or hopeless grief, but 
everywhere there is serene life and a tranquil 
mind, and such farewells as are said upon the 
eve of a long journey. The ancient Athenians 
believed in the immortality of the soul. 

I. Man is the only creature that meditates upon 
death, and looks upon it as a fate in which his 
own ultimate destiny is included. And from 
looking at death, he must needs look beyond it 
too. For just as some little lad, reading an ex- 
citing story, becomes engrossed in the fortunes of 
the hero — difficulties and dangers thicken about 
him, and his very life is threatened on all sides — 
and can stand it no longer, but eagerly turns over 
the pages and looks further on to see how it will 
end, and seeing that his hero still lives and tri- 
umphs, turns back with a brave heart to read the 
story that lies before him, so we have sometimes 
trembled for our own ultimate destiny, and have 
turned over the pages to see how it all will end 
with us by and by, and seeing, have again taken 



32 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

courage to face the struggle of duty that lies 
before us. " Man is that creature who expects 
to survive the event of physical death." 

II. And yet this is not without doubts, many 
and grave, for we live in a scientific age, and 
have been trained to investigate after the scientific 
method. As John Fiske states the argument, we 
find that throughout the animal kingdom the 
power to feel and will is connected with nerve- 
matter in varying degrees of complexity. A rise 
in the scale of intelligence is associated with an 
increase in the complexity of the nervous system. 
Injuries to this nerve structure entail failure of 
the mental functions. Now, as far as we can 
see, at the moment of death, as soon as the cur- 
rent of arterial blood ceases to flow to the brain, 
to stimulate that great nerve center, all signs of 
consciousness cease for the onlooker. There 
can be no real existence without consciousness. 
Hence, at death, when the nervous system is re- 
solved into its elements, we have no evidence 
that consciousness (which is to say, the soul) 
survives, any more than the wetness of water 
survives when it is separated into oxygen and 
hydrogen. As some one has said, " No thought 
without phosphorus/ ' Or, as Socrates had the 
argument put to him, " Is not the soul the har- 



DOES DEATH END ALL? 33 

mony of the lyre, which is destroyed when the 
lyre is destroyed? " 

So speaks the scientist. But is the soul thus 
dependent upon nervous energy, and is it de- 
stroyed when this is destroyed? Can we argue 
as to the soul on the simple basis of experience? 

To all this we would say that our experience 
is limited, and outside of our experience are im- 
mense regions of existence, vast stretches of real- 
ity, just as real as the regions we are familiar 
with, concerning which we cannot form the 
slightest conception, simply because we have no 
means of coming into this knowledge. Every 
once in a while we stumble across some item 
from this unknown world, as Franklin did when 
flying his kite and Roentgen did while working 
in his laboratory and stumbled upon the baffling 
X rays. There are myriads of other facts in that 
same unseen world about us, though we know 
them not. 

If this is true of the physical world, how much 
more may it be true of the spiritual world? 
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we grant 
that there are myriads of disembodied spirits 
about us at this moment; how could we become 
aware of their existence ? We have no organ or 
faculty for perceiving soul apart from the body. 
The evidence is inaccessible. Hence, science 
c 



34 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

raises no presumption against the immortality of 
the soul. It says simply that we have no way, 
as far as it knows, of reaching the evidence, for 
science knows nothing which cannot be touched, 
weighed, or measured. But science is willing to 
admit that, as there are many mysteries which it 
cannot know, so here. And hence while it does 
not deny immortality, it leaves us perfectly free to 
welcome any consideration or argument which 
we can find from other sources. 

And so we come back to our original search. 
Because we are the very men and women who 
are to die, the question of death and what is be- 
yond acquires for us a larger meaning than the 
question of the continuance of the sun or the 
life and death of the cosmical system. " If a 
man die, shall he live again? " Let us see if we 
can find any testimony upon that point. 

III. There are two kinds of evidence — prob- 
able and demonstrative. The latter proves a thing 
mathematically, so that there is no possible ques- 
tioning of the result. You say that two plus two 
equals four. A little child might question that 
fact, but it is possible to prove, even to a little 
child, that two and two cannot equal any other 
figure in all the universe except four. There 
can be no questioning of that result. 



DOES DEATH END ALL? 35 

On the other hand, probable evidence cannot 
reach the point of absolute certainty, but admits 
of degrees, from the lowest possible presumption 
to the highest moral certainty. As you leave a 
friend some night, on your way home from 
church, you will say, " Good night. I will see 
you to-morrow/' Suppose that one should ques- 
tion that proposition, how would you prove it? 
" Oh, well," you say, " I am not absolutely cer- 
tain that I will see my friend to-morrow, but I 
am reasonably sure of it, because I am taking it 
for granted that the sun will swing into view 
to-morrow morning, and that my friend and I 
will still be in the land of the living." And that 
is sufficient for all practical purposes. 

Now, not all things can be proven mathemati- 
cally or demonstratively, but many things have 
to be taken upon probable evidence. Indeed, the 
very greatest problems of life have often to be 
faced and solved upon, not absolute certainty, 
but the probabilities of the case. The farmer 
cannot be sure that his seed will sprout and grow 
and bring forth a bountiful harvest, and he would 
never plant a crop if he waited for mathematical 
proof. There would be no marrying nor giving 
in marriage if the young man or woman waited 
to be assured beyond the possibility of doubt that 
the one to be chosen as a life companion would 



36 life's to-morrows 

in every respect prove to be the ideal one for the 
life journey, with no disagreements, no lack of 
congeniality. No business could be conducted 
except upon probable evidence that certain in- 
vestments would pay. No man could even eat 
his dinner if he should say, " My dear, I am 
hungry, and this food you have prepared looks 
good, but I have heard of such a thing as pto- 
maine poisoning, and I refuse absolutely to eat a 
bit of this dinner until you prove to me beyond 
the possibility of a doubt that if I eat what's be- 
fore me, it will be changed into blood and muscle 
and do me no harm." In all these things and a 
thousand more every day men proceed, not upon 
demonstrative, but probable evidence. 

Now, the very man who deals wisely when he 
deals with the questions of this life, investing his 
money, eating his dinner, marrying his wife, and 
attending to the thousand and one problems that 
daily confront him upon probable evidence, 
nevertheless, when it comes to questions of the 
greatest moment, acts foolishly, and demands 
mathematical evidence. He cannot have it. 

There are contingencies in life when it would 
be foolish in the extreme for one not to act upon 
the probabilities; and indeed there are occasions 
when one would be foolish not to venture even 
when the probabilities are against him. When a 



DOES DEATH END ALL? 37 

house is on fire, a man does not wait to be as- 
sured demonstratively that if he jumps from the 
window he will be safe. All access to the stair- 
way has already been cut off by the raging flames, 
and in a few moments the room where he is will 
be a roaring furnace. He waits not. To stay 
where he is is certain death. It may kill him to 
jump. The probability is against him, but he 
will take the risk, and jumps. So with reference 
to such problems as confront one in the realm of 
religion. Is there such a thing as immortality? 
It cannot be proven mathematically, but the 
probable evidence may be presented. 

IV. The argument from the universality of 
belief in immortality is worth something. It is 
natural to the human mind to believe in life be- 
yond death. Multitudes expect it without desir- 
ing it, and many look for that heavenly life who 
care not for the earthly. All peoples have had 
this belief. The monuments of Egypt bear wit- 
ness to it. The modern Indian places an arrow- 
head and an earthen vessel beside his dead, and 
the ancient Greek placed a silver obolus for the 
shade to use in paying for its passage over the 
Styx. Immortality was one of the strongest 
items in the faith of our own savage ancestors 
in the forests of northern Europe. 



38 life's to-morrows 

But it is the belief of other than savage peo- 
ples. Moody, dying, said : " I see earth receding ; 
heaven is opening; God is calling me." And 
even little children persist in the belief in im- 
mortality. Wordsworth saw a little maiden, and 
asking her how many children there were in her 
family, was told that there were seven, and she 
explained that two at Conway dwelt, two had 
gone to sea, two in the churchyard lay, while she 
was at home with her mother. He tried to ex- 
plain that if two were dead, there were only five 
of them, saying : 

But they are dead ; those two are dead ! 
Their spirits are in heaven ! 
'T was throwing words away ; for still 
The little maid would have her will, 
And said, " Nay, we are seven." 

V. There is another argument to be drawn 
from the nature of man. There was a time when 
this earth was supposed to be the center of the 
universe, and man was the chief creature upon 
the earth. Later we came to know that the center 
was millions of miles away, far off among the 
stars, and that our entire solar system was whirl- 
ing through illimitable space, and that our earth 
was hardly more than a speck in a sunbeam, and 
man so insignificant as not worthy to be consid- 
ered by the side of the enlarged universe. But 



DOES DEATH END ALL? 39 

the doctrine of evolution has restored man to 
his position of headship from which the Coper- 
nican astronomy had dislodged him, for it shows 
man to be the crown and aim of the whole proc- 
ess of creation, so that the words of the psalmist 
have acquired a new and larger meaning when,, 
referring to the dignity of man, he says : 

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? 
And the son of man, that thou visitest him? 
For thou hast made him but little lower than God, 
And crownest him with glory and honor. 

Christ would not have atoned for the creatures 
of a day. Because man is great in dignity, great 
in the sight of God, Christ came to redeem him. 

Now, of this man, the soul is the greatest part. 
Not for his wondrous body, or nervous system, 
or imagination, but because of his soul man is 
great. When eighty years old, John Quincy Ad- 
ams was met on the streets of Boston by an old 
friend who, taking his trembling hand, said: 
" Good morning ! And how is John Quincy Ad- 
ams to-day ?" "Thank you," the ex-president 
replied, " John Quincy Adams himself is well, 
sir; quite well, I thank you. But the house in 
which he lives at present is becoming dilapidated. 
It is tottering upon its foundation. Time and 
seasons have nearly destroyed it. Its roof is 
pretty well worn out. Its walls are much shat- 



40 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

tered, and it trembles with every wind. The old 
tenement is becoming almost uninhabitable, and I 
think John Quincy Adams will have to move out 
of it soon; but he himself is quite well, sir; quite 
well." 

And the soul is in great part independent of 
the body. It approaches perfection in its think- 
ing in proportion as it is able to eliminate the 
evidence of the senses, and rely upon abstract 
reasoning. The soul is not the harmony pro- 
duced by the harp, but the harper who produces 
the harmony from the harp, and who survives the 
destruction of the harp. The soul is an emana- 
tion from God to which is given brain and body 
as the instruments of expression during its sea- 
son of temporary residence in material form and 
will survive them all. 

Now, this soul, thus great, is not fully devel- 
oped here, and the ethical necessity of an un- 
finished life demands a life to come. As a moral 
and intellectual being, man does not attain to the 
fulness of possible existence here. There must 
be a hereafter for the full growth of his powers, 
or divine wisdom would leave its work unfin- 
ished. It needs an immortal existence to ex- 
haust the infinite capabilities of a man. George 
Eliot said, " I have not used half my faculties/' 
" Many things are becoming clearer to me," said 



DOES DEATH END ALL? 4 1 

Schiller, dying. So Job, unvindicated, could say, 
" I know that my Redeemer liveth. . . and after 
my skin, even this body, is destroyed, then with- 
out my flesh shall I see God." He was innocent, 
and he needed that in the world to come that 
innocence should be established. 

You say, " I admit the immortality of the 
righteous, but not of the wicked." Just as in 
this world the righteous do not reach their ap- 
propriate development, so the wicked are not ade- 
quately punished. Annihilation is not sufficient 
penalty. God's moral government needs another 
life for its vindication. Louis XV, one of the 
most wicked kings that France ever had, died 
quietly in his bed, while Louis XVI, one of the 
best kings that France ever had, was beheaded 
by the guillotine. Sulla, the notorious butcher of 
his fellow-men, died peacefully in his palace, 
while Jesus of Nazareth, who came to redeem 
his fellow-men, died upon the accursed cross. 

Three men went out one summer night, 

No care had they, or aim, 
And dined and drank. " Ere we go home, 

We'll have," they said, " a game." 

Three girls began that summer night 

A life of endless shame, 
And went through drink, disease, and death, 

As swift as racing flame. 



42 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

Lawless and homeless, foul, they died: 

Rich, loved, and praised, the men; 
But when they all shall meet with God, 

And justice speaks, what then? 

God's love argues the immortality of the right- 
eous; God's justice argues the immortality of the 
wicked. To neither saint nor sinner is death the k 
annihilation of being. Jesus used the same word 
to describe the duration of the existence of both 
when in the last verse of the twenty-fifth chap- 
ter of Matthew he said, " These shall go away 
into eternal punishment; but the righteous into 
eternal life." 

VI. These arguments rest upon the assumption 
that God is a being of love. No God, no im- 
mortality. They are not conclusive. They 
simply include the balance of probability, and 
open the way for the greatest of all arguments 
to follow and decide the matter to absolute cer- 
tainty for every one who accepts the Bible as the 
word of God. For the evidence of the Bible is 
incontestable. One unimpeachable statement is 
given in the closing words of the twenty-fifth 
chapter of Matthew. So does the seventh verse 
of the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes speak with 
no uncertain sound, declaring that at the moment 
of death, while the body returns to the earth, the 



DOES DEATH END ALL? 43 

soul returns to God who gave it. The weary 
plaint of the book of Job, " If a man die, shall 
he live again? " is answered on almost every page 
of that New Covenant which tells of the coming 
of that One who brought life and immortality to 
light through the gospel. The immortality of 
the soul is taught in the very words used for 
death, such as " sleep," " departure," " absence," 
and " decease." None of these suggests cessa- 
tion of being, but continued existence under 
changed conditions and in a new environment. 

We read of the good patriarchs and kings of 
old, that " they slept with their fathers." And 
when we come to the later days, we read, " And 
they stoned Stephen, and he said, Lord Jesus, re- 
ceive my spirit." But the greatest proof for im- 
mortality is found in the resurrection of Jesus. 
Upon that Paul bases his tremendous argument 
in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians : 
" For this corruptible must put on incorruption, 
and this mortal must put on immortality." 

VII. If all this is true, it takes away the sting 
from death, and victory from the grave. Euripi- 
des said, " Who knows whether to live is not to 
die, and to die to live? " So may we look with- 
out dread upon the termination of this we call 
life, knowing that to the one who trusts the evan- 



44 LIFE'S TO-MORROWS 

gel of Jesus, death is no longer a calamity, but 
a boon, a messenger sent to summon him into the 
presence of the Eternal, where there are joys 
forevermore. 

So if the soul is thus immortal, it requires our 
care both for time and eternity. To neglect it is 
awful. As childhood bears upon and influences 
manhood and old age, so does this life have to do 
with the life to come. There is a most important 
connection between the present and the future. 
As the life of the Christian obtains its complete- 
ness there, so of the life of sin. As it is possible 
to lay up treasures there with God, upon the joy 
of which we will in due time enter, so is it pos- 
sible for us to lay up wrath against the day of 
wrath for our realization by and by. 

Faith in immortality is the greatest achieve- 
ment of the human mind. He who doubts it fails 
to live up to the progress of the race, and he who 
disbelieves it turns back the hands of time, throws 
away his prerogative as the chief among God's 
creatures, and would plunge the race afresh into 
barbarism. It is this belief alone which makes 
the world inhabitable and life livable. To do 
away with this belief would leave a drear and 
deadly moral desert in which no loving thought 
could live and no noble aspiration survive. 

Some years ago a man lived with his family in 



DOES DEATH END ALL? 45 

a beautiful suburban home in an Eastern State. 
One after another he suffered a series of be- 
reavements. His wife and children died, leaving 
him utterly alone. He closed his home and 
placed his furniture for a time in a storage ware- 
house. After several months he went to the 
warehouse, paid a bill of several hundred dollars 
for the care of his furniture, and had all his 
goods hauled to the brow of a high hill for burn- 
ing. Different ones begged hard that they might 
have some of the articles, but the owner refused. 
With his own hands he wielded an axe, breaking 
up everything that was breakable, and then set 
fire to the heap and waited until it was all con- 
sumed. He said that he did not want anything 
to remain in existence that could remind him of 
the loved ones who had passed away. 

How different are the feelings of those whose 
hearts are illuminated and cheered by the Chris- 
tian's hope of immortality. We know that be- 
cause Christ rose, our friends and loved ones 
shall live, and we are able to say with Paul, "If 
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so 
them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with 
him." 



Ill 

SHALL WE KNOW EACH OTHER 
THERE? 



"But now that he is dead, wherefore should I fast? 
Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will 
not return to me." 2 Sam. 12 : 23. 

"And I say unto you, that many shall come from the 
east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and 
Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 8 : 11. 

" Son, remember." Luke 16 : 25. 

"For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of glorying? 
Are not even ye, before our Lord Jesus at his coming? 
For ye are our glory and our joy" 1 Thess. 2 : igf. 



Ill 

SHALL WE KNOW EACH OTHER THERE ? AN - 
INQUIRY INTO HEAVENLY RECOGNITION 

THERE is universal interest in the problem 
of heavenly recognition. Heaven is inti- 
mately associated with the idea of companionship, 
for we shall there be with the Saviour, and with 
the Father, and the loved ones who have gone 
before ; but the heart is harrowed with doubts as 
to the reality and extent of the recognition be- 
tween loved ones there. 

I. The universal longing and belief of the hu- 
man race may be urged in proof of the doctrine 
that we will know each other in heaven. All men 
have believed in a conscious life of mutual recog- 
nition beyond the grave. In the " Odyssey," Ho- 
mer represents Odysseus as visiting the shades 
of the dead, and there meeting and talking with 
many whom he had known on earth. There he 
saw Elpener and Ajax. Patroclus and Achilles, 
friends on earth, were friends still after death, 
and walked arm in arm through that nether 
world. Socrates said, " Who would not part 
d 49 



SO LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

with a great deal to purchase a meeting with 
Orpheus, Hesiod, and Homer? What pleasure 
will it give to live with Palamedes and others 
who have suffered unjustly, and to compare my 
fate with theirs. What an inconceivable happi- 
ness will it be to converse, in another world, with 
Sisyphus and Odysseus, especially as those who 
inhabit that world shall die no more." 

Virgil, in the " Aeneid," represents Aeneas as 
going through the under world, and there he sees 
his father, Anchises, and the poet describes the 
rapture of their recognition and the tenderness 
of their greeting. 

Cicero, a hundred years before Christ, speak- 
ing of his death, said, " O glorious day! When 
I shall retire from this low and sordid scene, to 
associate with the divine assembly of departed 
spirits; and not with those only whom I have 
just now mentioned, but with my dear Cato, that 
best of sons and most valuable of men! It was 
my sad fate to lay his body on the funeral pile, 
when by the course of nature I had reason to 
hope he would have performed the same last 
office to mine.' , 

The very meaning of Dante's immortal poem 
is lost if we do not allow recognition beyond the 
grave. 

But it is not necessary for us to go to ancient 



SHALL WE KNOW EACH OTHER THERE? SI 

or medieval times to find this belief. It is in 
the world to-day, inspiring the hearts of Chris- 
tians as well as pagans, and far stronger in 
Christian than in pagan lands. It is stronger 
with saints than with sinners, and increases in 
individual lives as they severally grow in grace. 
It is strongest of all in times of deepest sorrow. 
No nation or denomination, no tribe or people, 
no country or age in all the history of the world, 
but has had this longing for recognition in the 
world to come, and belief in its truth. It is a 
spontaneous feeling, a consciousness, a desire. 
It is on a par with the sense of sin, belief in 
God and the immortality of the soul, and the 
efficacy of sacrifice. 

Now, error is sectional, truth is catholic, and 
any want or feeling of universal humanity may 
be looked upon as a prophecy of the truth. 

II. Belief in heavenly recognition also follows 
from the nature of the redeemed. He that be- 
lieves on Jesus Christ, we are told, " hath eternal 
life." Self-consciousness is characteristic of life, 
and there can be no consciousness of self without 
the consciousness of others. The very means 
which enable us to identify ourselves will enable 
us to identify our fellow-men. Self-conscious- 
ness is the ability to say " I," and to say that 



52 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

is to project the self over against one's fellows. 
And all admit that in the world to come we shall 
know God and his Son, and that is unthinkable 
unless we shall also know each other. 

We shall take memory with us into the world 
to come, for it was to that faculty that Abraham 
in the parable appealed when he said to Dives, 
" Son, remember. " If we carry memory, then 
we carry power to recollect many of our earthly 
relations, or else we shall forget all origins, fail 
to recognize the force of our own redemption, 
and lose our own identity. In Revelation we 
learn that the redeemed praise the Lamb for their 
redemption. What is redemption if it be not a 
comparing of what one is in heaven with what 
one was without divine grace? 

Social laws lie deep in our nature. Man is a 
gregarious animal. He delights in association 
with his fellows. That is an essential part of his 
being, and he will not lay it aside in death. If 
there is a life beyond, we must believe that man's 
social instinct will go into it with him. 

That future life will be characterized by vastly 
enlarged knowledge, " for now we see in a mir- 
ror darkly,; but then face to face. Now I know 
in part, but then shall I know fully, even as also 
I was fully known." One day a Welsh preacher 
was reading his Bible, when his wife suddenly 



SHALL WE KNOW EACH OTHER THERE? 53 

asked, " John Evans, do you think we will know 
each other in heaven? " Quick as a flash he re- 
plied, " To be sure we will. Do you think we 
will be greater fools there than here? " 

It needs the future recognition to complete 
what is here interrupted or incomplete. The 
man who did you such a great favor died without 
your being able to tell him how much you owe 
to him. Thousands have helped you, and you 
have not acknowledged the indebtedness. How 
good it is that there will be a time when you 
can fulfil this neglected task. Paul suggests this 
when in i Thessalonians, second chapter, he says, 
" What is our hope, or joy, or crown of glory- 
ing? Are not even ye, before our Lord Jesus at 
his coming ?" His converts could not be his 
glory and rejoicing in the day of Christ's second 
appearing if it is to be understood that he was 
not even to know them and they could not even 
know and recognize him. Such a thing is not 
supposable. 

III. This reference to the words of Paul sug- 
gests another proof of the doctrine, and that is 
that it is taught in Scripture. The ancient Jews 
referred to their dead as being " gathered to their 
fathers," a phrase that would have no meaning if 
the fathers into whose presence they were gath- 



54 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

ered did not know them at their coming. In 
keeping with this belief are the words of David 
the king, as upon the death of his child he said, 
" I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." 
He was comforted when he felt that he would see 
his child again. 

The New Testament is like the Old ; the teach- 
ings about the life beyond are mainly inciden- 
tal and indirect. The fact is assumed rather 
than declared. But some will say that Jesus de- 
nied recognition altogether when he said to the 
Sadducees that in the resurrection " they neither 
marry nor are given in marriage, but are as an- 
gels in heaven. " But he did not say that w r e 
would not know each other in the resurrection 
life, but that there would be no such thing as the 
institution of marriage. Here is where the argu- 
ment from silence is worth something. You re- 
member the occasion when those words were 
spoken. It was Tuesday during the passion week, 
when Jesus was opposed by so many enemies 
and plied with captious questions. Among the 
others who came were some Sadducees, who be- 
lieved that there was no resurrection, and they 
asked him the well-known question about the 
woman who had had seven husbands, wanting 
to know whose wife she would be in the resur- 
rection, for all the seven had her for a wife. If 



SHALL WE KNOW EACH OTHER THERE? 55 

Christ had meant to teach that there was no such 
thing as recognition in the life to come, he would 
have said, " Your question, with its implied ob- 
jection to the resurrection, amounts to nothing, 
for in heaven there is no extension of earthly ties, 
no mutual recognition, and husbands and wives 
will not even know each other there." He did 
not say it, for that was not what he meant to 
teach. He did say that there is no need for the 
institution of marriage in the world to come, for 
marriage fulfils its purpose in this world; but 
that does not mean that friendships formed on 
earth will not continue into the life to come and 
help to constitute its joy. 

In the fourteenth chapter of John, Jesus pic- 
tures heaven as a family life in the Father's 
house, where there are many mansions, and all 
of us will be there with Jesus himself, who is 
now preparing a place for his own. Will the 
host of redeemed ones spend eternity together, 
and yet not know each other? 

Again, he speaks of heaven under the figure of 
a feast, many reclining with Abraham and Isaac 
and Jacob. Shall the inhabitants of heaven feast 
together and yet not know each other? And if 
there is no such thing as recognition there, how 
will they even know Abraham and Isaac and 
Jacob ? 



56 life's to-morrows 

Is friendship unfit for heaven? And love, has 
it no place there? Are these, the noblest of af- 
fections, that make earth inhabitable, to be ruled 
out of the life of the redeemed as unworthy? 
God forbid ! We do not understand that heaven 
is to destroy the human, but elevate it, perfect it, 
and sanctify it forever. This humanity of ours 
is finally to partake of the immortality of deity, 
and associate with God throughout the eternities. 
Away with the thought that death makes a seri- 
ous break in our existence. The believer after 
death is the same being that he was before. To 
die is but an incident in the larger life of a child 
of God. The saints in glory will still be pos- 
sessed of the same character, will power, affec- 
tions, and desires that characterize them in this 
life, only these will be intensified and purified, 
and having been washed by the blood of the 
Lamb, will be found worthy of God's home. Our 
personalities in heaven will be the same as they 
are on earth, possessed with the powers and fac- 
ulties that are ours here. Death effects no vio- 
lent change in the real self. If we know and 
love our dear ones here, and admire our heroes 
of the past, and imitate those to whom we look 
for leadership now, so will we love and admire 
and imitate in the world to come. 

Something of a glimpse of the inward life of 



SHALL WE KNOW EACH OTHER THERE? 57 

that blessed place is to be seen in the visit which 
was made to Jesus at the time of his transfigura- 
tion by Moses and Elijah. These two had not 
known each other on earth, and their deaths had 
been separated by centuries, yet we see them as 
fellow-visitants from the land of God, friends 
and companions in a common life and a common 
work. 

In 1 Thessalonians, fourth chapter and eight- 
eenth verse, Paul writes : " Wherefore comfort 
one another with these words." How? Where 
is the comfort ? In the fact of the resurrection ? 
No, they had long believed in that, as all of the 
early Christians did, and they seemingly expected 
it to occur during their day. There was some- 
thing new in what Paul had just written to them 
which was to bring them comfort. Believing in 
the resurrection, and looking for it every day, 
they were nevertheless grieved about their loved 
ones who had already fallen asleep. They feared 
that when Christ should come, these departed 
brethren would miss his appearing. No, Paul 
teaches them they would not miss it, for them 
would Christ bring with him, and all would be 
joined together with Christ for ever. There was 
the comfort. They would see their loved ones 
again, and they themselves and their beloved dead 
would share a common fate, and spend eternity 



58 life's to-morrows 

together. How careful should we be in forming 
our ties on earth. 



IV. There are certain objections which it 
would be well for us to notice before our study 
is ended. 

It is urged that death is such a great change 
that recognition of earth relations is not to be 
supposed as continuing into the life that is be- 
yond death. There is a great change which oc- 
curs at death, but it does not consist in altering 
or adding to, but in perfecting that which already 
exists. It is to be an evolution rather than a 
transformation. Paul does say, " And we shall 
be changed.' ' But he goes on to explain that the 
change is to be for the better. " For this cor- 
ruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal 
must put on immortality." The changes which 
he suggests are from the lower to the higher — 
all of them. The disciples knew their Lord after 
the resurrection, though he had passed through 
this suggested change and had put on incorrup- 
tion, and was already clothed with his glorified 
body. 

But some one will say that if this doctrine were 
true, it would be more clearly revealed. The 
doctrine of the Trinity is nowhere formally stated 
in the Bible, and yet we do not disbelieve it for 



SHALL WE KNOW EACH OTHER THERE? 59 

that reason. The same is true of other doctrines. 
It is really in favor of any truth that it is not 
stated after a formal fashion. It makes it all the 
stronger if it be assumed rather than declared. 

A great objection to the doctrine we are study- 
ing together is found in the statement that if we 
know our friends and loved ones in heaven, we 
shall miss those who are not there, and so there 
will be pain and distress in heaven. To this there 
are several things to say. We must believe, if 
what we have been studying is true, that all ties 
which are not sanctified end at death. And this 
applies to those ties of kindred and friendship 
which have not been sanctified by being raised 
from the kingdom of mere nature to the kingdom 
of grace. And it may also be said God is able 
to give to his children a blessed forgetfulness of 
what will produce pain. Or it may be urged the 
knowledge of the loss of loved ones will not be 
incompatible with perfect happiness in heaven. 
Christ loves sinners far more than we love our 
own in this world, and has done for their salva- 
tion infinitely more than we can ever do, and is 
ten thousand times more interested in their sal- 
vation than we can be, and yet though he knows 
that multitudes will not be saved through his 
atoning work, he is nevertheless perfectly happy. 
This is true also of the angels. Perhaps they are 



6o life's to-morrows 

happy because they know that those who are not 
saved have deliberately refused to accept the offer 
made them through Jesus Christ, and have of 
their own free will selected their own destiny. 
No one is to blame for the result except 
themselves. 

In the world to come there will be such perfect 
sympathy between the redeemed and God that 
his will shall be their will too. They will know 
that all that he does is wisest and best. Here we 
do not fully comprehend his designs, but there, 
when all is explained to us and the mysteries 
cleared away we will understand, and there will 
come no pang to disturb the soul growing out of 
his treatment of the impenitent. We shall rest 
in satisfied assurance that the Judge of all the 
earth will do right. 

V. We have tried to prove that there will be 
recognition in heaven. As to the extent of it 
we have not yet inquired. While earth's friend- 
ships will continue into the world to come, we do 
not think that earth's kinships will be exactly the 
same in heaven, for they will be swallowed up in 
the higher affections of the spiritual world. 
Spiritual ties will be the strongest. And we shall 
see and know our loved ones who have gone on 
before, and who will follow after. 



SHALL WE KNOW EACH OTHER THERE? 6 1 

Some few years ago a fine young man sud- 
denly died. He was a believer in the Lord Jesus, 
a college student, a lover of music, altogether a 
young man of extraordinary promise. When the 
body was about to be placed in the casket, his 
mother went into the room to see that all was 
as she would have it Her grief was pitiful. 
She stroked the hands, laid her fair head upon 
the broad chest of her firstborn, and said amid 
her tears, " I shall not see my dear boy again." 
" Oh, yes," said her husband; " this is only for a 
little while, until the resurrection." It seems that 
the idea had not occurred to her before, though 
for years she had been a Christian. Turning to 
her husband quickly, she asked, " Only until 
then? " " Yes," he replied. " Then," said she, 
" I can stand it. Good-bye." Again, in the car- 
riage, on her way to the cemetery, her grief was 
assuaged by that idea of the coming reunion, and 
she kept saying to herself, " I can wait until 
then." 

Ah, sirs, have ye not some loved ones who have 
passed on before? What are you doing to 
prepare to meet them in the days to come? 



IV 
WITH WHAT BODY DO THEY COME? 



" For the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs 
shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have 
done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that 
have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment" John 
5 : 28 f. 

" We ourselves groan zvithin ourselves, waiting for our 
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" Rom. 8:23. 

" But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; 
and the Lord for the body: and God hath raised the Lord, 
and will raise up us through his power. Know ye not that 
your bodies are members of Christ?" 1 Cor. 6: 13-15. 

"But some one will say, How are the dead raised f and 
with what manner of body do they come? Thou foolish 
one, that which thou thyself sowest is not quickened ex- 
cept it die: and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not 
the body that shall be, but a bare grain, it may chance of 
wheat, or of some other kind; but God giveth it a body 
even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its 
own. . . So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown 
in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in 
dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sozvn in weakness; it 
is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised 
a spiritual body." 1 Cor. 15 : 35-38, 42-44. 



IV 

WITH WHAT BODY DO THEY COME? A STUDY 
OF THE RESURRECTION 

IN nothing does the preaching of the present 
day differ more from the preaching of the 
apostles than in the subjects about which the 
preachers speak. Ministers now-a-days preach 
on many themes ; the apostles spoke of one. When 
the eleven chose another to be an apostle, it was 
that he might be with them a witness of the res- 
urrection of Jesus. When Peter preached on the 
day of Pentecost, he declared that David spoke 
of the resurrection of Christ. The chief cause 
of the arrest of Peter and John, when they were 
taken before the council, was that they " preached 
through Jesus Christ the resurrection from the 
dead." When they were set free, we read that 
with great power they gave witness of the res- 
urrection of the Lord Jesus. It was this which 
caused the curiosity of the Athenians, because 
Paul preached unto them Jesus and the resurrec- 
tion, and when in his famous sermon on the 
Areopagus he reached the climax of his dis- 
course, it was a declaration that God had raised 
e 65 



66 life's to-morrows 

up Jesus from the dead. And when later on Paul 
was called before the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, he 
declared before Pharisee and Sadducee, " Con- 
cerning the resurrection of the dead I am called 
in question/' And in his famous First Letter to 
the Corinthians, he sums it all up by asserting, 
" If Christ be not risen from the dead, then is 
our preaching vain, and your faith is vain, and 
ye are yet in your sins." 

The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead 
is Christianity's unique contribution to the 
thought and faith of the world. We perhaps be- 
lieve it, but too seldom think and speak about 
it — and there is a question whether we really 
believe it. 

I. Now, the resurrection of the body is some- 
thing entirely different from the immortality of 
the soul. This latter almost everybody believes, 
and in doing so is in line with the greatest think- 
ers of all ages. This is a doctrine which human 
reason was able to reach by its own processes, 
but the great truth concerning the resurrection of 
the body is known only because it was revealed 
from heaven. When Paul spoke in Athens of the 
resurrection, we read that some mocked, thus 
showing that he was not understood as speaking 
of immortality, for that had been taught to the 



WITH WHAT BODY DO THEY COME? 67 

Athenians by Socrates and Plato, and all Athens 
had reverently received it. 

The Scriptures state that there is to be a uni- 
versal resurrection. " All that are in the tombs 
shall hear his voice and shall come forth." The 
miracle of Lazarus will be repeated on a scale of 
universal magnitude. 

II. Of course there are men who object to 
this, as they object to other revealed truths. 
Some say that the resurrection of the particles 
which compose the body at death is impossible, 
inasmuch as they have entered into new com- 
binations, and are now parts of other bodies 
which must rise too, if the doctrine of the res- 
urrection is accepted. They illustrate this by de- 
claring that the bodies of the dead fertilized the 
field of Waterloo. Wheat grown there since has 
been made into bread and eaten by thousands of 
living men. Thus the particles of one body have 
been incorporated into the bodies of many others. 
They ask how are the particles of the body of 
the victim to be separated from the particles of 
the body of the cannibal. The ashes of Wycliffe's 
body were strewn upon the Avon. This into the 
Severn ran, and the Severn into the sea. How, 
they ask, are the particles of that body to be 
assembled against the day of resurrection ? 



68 life's to-morrows 

The material and mechanical view of the res- 
urrection which was current a century ago might 
have been open to this objection, as Doctor 
Strong suggests, for writers of that time, in de- 
scribing the resurrection, spoke of arms which 
had been amputated in China hurtling through 
the air to join the body which would rise in 
England. 

This has caused some to deny the fact of the 
resurrection of the same body that dies, and they 
assert that we are to receive an entirely new body 
at the resurrection, which is to be vitalized by the 
same spirit. But this is to deny all unity or 
continuity between the body that dies and the 
body that is given to the spirit at the resurrection. 

The truth lies midway between these two 
views ; the resurrection body is not the same that 
was laid away in the grave, yet it is the same. 
The Bible nowhere says that every particle of the 
old is to be in the new body. In fact, it explicitly 
denies that, saying : " Thou so west not the body 
that shall be." The wheat does not contain every 
precise particle that was in the seed, perhaps none 
of those particles, yet the one is the result of 
the other, and there has been a continuous physi- 
cal connection between the seed and the fruit. 
And this is what the Bible asserts, that there is 
to be a certain connection or continuity between 



WITH WHAT BODY DO THEY COME? 69 

the old and the new body, though the nature of 
that connection is not distinctly revealed. " Tt 
is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory.'' So 
long as this physical connection is retained, it is 
not necessary to suppose that a single particle of 
the old remains in the new. Referring to Doctor 
Strong again, he illustrates this by saying that 
while the North River is the same now that it 
was when Hudson discovered it three centuries 
ago, every particle on the banks of the river and 
in the river itself has been changed in that time. 
So of our dead. Some were drowned, some 
blown to atoms, some burned, and others hacked 
to pieces. It is in nowise necessary that their 
scattered members be recovered, for the resur- 
rection is not a resuscitation nor a revivification. 
Not death, but a bodily change, is necessary to a 
real resurrection, for some who do not die will 
yet receive that changed and glorified body. " The 
preservation of personal identity no more depends 
upon these frail tabernacles of clay than a man's 
ego depends upon the clothes he wears." And 
yet the identity between the old and the new will 
be perfectly preserved. How? I do not know. 
Some things God has saved to himself Well did 
Paul call it a mystery, for it is one of the mighti- 
est mysteries in all the story of man's redemption. 
A workman in Faraday's laboratory knocked a 



JO LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

silver cup into a tank of acid, which completely 
ate up the silver. The great chemist added some 
substance to the acid, which precipitated the silver 
to the bottom of the tank. He gathered up this 
recovered silver, and sent it to a silversmith, and 
Faraday had his cup again. Cannot God do as 
much as Faraday did? 

Another objection is stated, as follows : A ma- 
terial organism, such as a body, is a hindrance 
to the free activities of the spirit, which gains 
when it loses the clay that clogs it. Hence, for 
a soul once freed again to assume such an or- 
ganism would indicate a decline in dignity and 
freedom rather than progress. This objection is 
based upon a false conception of the human body 
that is a survival of the ascetic notions of the 
past. The Bible does not speak so. When we go 
to the account of the creation of man we read, 
" Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the 
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath 
of life; and man became a living soul/' This is 
a unique statement only found in this description 
of the creation of man. He was different from 
all other animals in that, while he had a body 
like the other animals, he was made " in the im- 
age of God," which was brought about when 
God " breathed into his nostrils the breath of 
life." We understand by that statement that 



WITH WHAT BODY DO THEY COME? JI 

God especially endowed man with a spiritual na- 
ture akin to his own, and that man is a living 
soul because he is unique union of spirit and 
body. Soul in the Bible is not opposed to body, 
but is in the body, its animating principle. Soul, 
in Scripture, has always this connotation of a 
body. As one has said, " There may be spirits, 
e. g., angels or demons, which have no bodies, 
but they are not ' souls/ " 

I quote from a recent book, which is a remark- 
able union of the best philosophy and the newest 
psychology, Professor Orr's " God's Image in 
Man," which speaks as follows : 

The body is as really a part of man's personality as 
the soul is. It is not, as philosophy is apt to teach us, a 
mere vesture or accident, or still worse, temporary prison- 
house of the soul, but is part of ourselves. Not, indeed, in 
the sense that the soul cannot survive the body, or subsist 
in some fashion without it, but in the sense that man was 
not created incorporeal spirit. His soul was made and 
meant to inhabit the body and was never intended to 
subsist apart from it. 

Let no one set slight esteem by his body. It 
is the temple of the Holy Spirit here; and here- 
after who can estimate the capacities of the ma- 
terial body when it shall have been brought into 
complete subjection to God? Now, matter mas- 
ters spirit; then spirit is to master matter. The 
bodies of the saints may be more ethereal than 



J2 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

air and swifter than the light, and yet be material. 
Christ's glorified body, after his resurrection, was 
no hindrance. 

Another objection sometimes urged against the 
resurrection is that it rests upon literal interpre- 
tation of metaphorical language, and so is not 
taught in the Bible. But the language is not 
metaphorical, but plain and often repeated. 
" But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, 
the first-fruits of them that are asleep. For since 
by man came death, by man came also the res- 
urrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, 
so also in Christ shall all be made alive." What 
could possibly be plainer than that? 

III. There is no valid objection that can be 
urged against the resurrection. The proofs for it 
are cumulative and overwhelming. The Bible 
teaches it upon almost every page. Abraham, 
Joseph, Job, David, Daniel, Isaiah, and others 
arose above the dead level of Hebrew material- 
ism and saw this truth; some, it is true, afar 
off, but others nigh at hand. And when we come 
to the New Covenant in our Lord Jesus Christ, 
almost every page shines and glistens with this 
truth. 

The resurrection is taught also by the dignity 
of the body. What nobler word could be said 



WITH WHAT BODY DO THEY COME? 73 

of the human body than is said ? Listen : " The 
body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; 
and the Lord for the body : and God both raised 
the Lord, and will raise up us through his 
power." And listen to this, " Know ye not that 
your bodies are members of Christ ?" And to 
this again : " Your body is a temple of the Holy 
Spirit" 

Even in death the human body is a thing to be 
honored and prized, for in the ninth verse of 
Jude we are told that the devil tried to disturb 
the body of Moses, but it was watched over by 
the archangel Michael, who contended with the 
devil and preserved that body unharmed. Would 
he wrestle with the enemy over that which was 
merely to be food for worms? It would almost 
seem that there is an angel watching over every 
tomb, guarding the precious dust of the redeemed 
bodies of the children of God against the day of 
resurrection. 

Professor Orr, referred to above, says in 
another place in that same book: 

It (i. e., biblical religion) puts a marked honor on the 
body. Christianity never loses sight of the body in its 
hopes for the future. The Christian religion knows noth- 
ing of the abstract immortality of the soul of the philo- 
sophic schools. It affirms the survival of the soul ; but the 
disembodied state is always regarded as a mutilated, im- 
perfect, temporary one. The immortality of which it holds 



74 LI FE S TO-MORROWS 

out the hope is an immortality of the whole man — body and 
soul together. 

But the greatest proof for our resurrection is 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He rose from 
the grave changed, yet the same, and in his rising 
we have the hope and pledge and type of our 
own. " Now, if Christ is preached that he hath 
been raised from the dead, how say some among 
you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 
But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither 
hath Christ been raised : . . . then is our preaching 
vain, your faith also is vain." A certain cape 
gained an evil repute because of its danger, and 
was called " The Cape of Storms." A daring 
navigator determined to overcome this difficulty, 
and ventured to round this cape, and so opened 
up a new route to the East Indies, and secured 
for his country the riches of the world, and they 
changed the name of the cape to " The Cape of 
Good Hope." That is what the resurrection of 
the Son of man has done for all humanity. The 
Conqueror of death, Christ lives. If he lives, so 
shall we, and so has hope passed to all men. 

IV. There will be two sorts of resurrection. 
They are called in the fifth chapter of John, 
twenty-ninth verse, " the resurrection of life " 
and " the resurrection of judgment." These two 



WITH WHAT BODY DO THEY COME? 75 

resurrections are described in the twentieth chap- 
ter of Revelation, the first as follows : " And I 
saw the souls of them that had been beheaded 
for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of 
God, and such as worshiped not the beast, neither 
his image, and received not the mark upon their 
forehead and upon their hand; and they lived, 
and reigned with Christ a thousand years. . . 
This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is 
he that hath part in the first resurrection." The 
second resurrection is described also : " The rest 
of the dead lived not until the thousand years 
should be finished. . . And I saw a great white 
throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose 
face the earth and the heaven fled away ; and 
there was no place for them. And I saw the 
dead, the great and the small, standing be- 
fore the throne; and books were opened: and 
another book was opened, which is the book of 
life : and the dead were judged out of the things 
which were written in the books, according to 
their works." One of these resurrections is 
blessed ; the other awful beyond compare. 

The one brings greatest comfort, for when we 
lay our beloved dead in the grave, knowing that 
his dying hope was in the Redeemer from sin, we 
know that we shall again behold that loved form, 
and see again the light of love flashing from 



y6 life's to-morrows 

those dimmed eyes. Even before death comes, 
the hope of the resurrection brings comfort, for 
we know that there is to come a time when the 
body will no longer be racked with pain nor sub- 
ject to disease, but risen triumphant over death, 
glorified, and freed from the curse caused by sin, 
our bodies will be like the fair body of the Son 
of God, and we will be like him and with him 
forever. " Glorify God therefore in your body." 
There is hardly a more pathetic sight in all the 
world than the recovered city of Pompeii, re- 
covered after eighteen centuries, only to find 
itself in a new and strange world, with its re- 
ligion gone, its temples deserted, and all replaced 
by a new religion of which it has no knowledge, 
through which it has no hope. Ah, sirs, you will 
rise again, but rise to what? At the day of res- 
urrection, when you come into the possession of 
your bodies again to resume your former life 
with all its activities, can you take it up again 
where you leave off? Does your present life take 
hold on eternity? Are you so living now as to 
be in touch with the realities of the new life 
which stretches out from the resurrection day? 



WHO SHALL BE ABLE TO STAND ? 



"For neither doth the Father judge any man, but he 
hath given all judgment unto the Son; that all may honor 
the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth 
not the Son, honoreth not the Father that sent him. 
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, 
and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and 
cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death 
into life." John 5 : 22-24. 

"And we know that the judgment of God is according 
to truth against them that practise such things. And reck- 
onest thou this, O man, who judgest them that practise 
such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the 
judgment of God? . . , For there is no respect of persons 
with God." Rom. 2 : 2, 3, 11. 

"And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon 
it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; 
and there was found no place for them. And I saw the 
dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; 
and books were opened: and another book was opened, 
which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out 
of the things which were written in the books, according 
to their works." Rev. 20 : 11, 12. 

"For we must all be made manifest before the judg- 
ment-seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things 
done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether 
it be good or bad." 2 Cor. 5 ; 10. 



V 

WHO SHALL BE ABLE TO STAND? A CONSIDERA- 
TION OF THE DAY OF JUDGMENT 

THERE is a story to the effect that a man 
who despaired of himself on account of 
his sins wrote to Henry Ward Beecher, asking 
him to preach at a certain time on the terrors of 
hell fire, in order that he who made the request 
might be present, and so be roused from his 
moral lethargy. There is a preaching that fails 
to reach the soul. Some sins need to be treated 
with the grape and canister of the wrath of God, 
and some souls, imperviously plated with solid 
steel of indifference, can be pierced only with the 
twelve-inch shells of awakening truth. 

The Bible idea of preaching is magnificent in- 
deed. It is not a dip into dilettanteism, it is not 
for the purpose of amusement, it is not to take 
a text from the happenings of the day or a ser- 
mon from the newspapers. It is placed in the 
proper light before us in the words of the Apostle 
Paul, written to a young minister, " Preach the 
word; be urgent in season, out of season; re- 
prove, rebuke, exhort. ,, Nothing is preaching 

79 



80 life's to-morrows 

which does not involve the conviction of sinners. 
" Reprove! " So wield the truth in the presence 
of the sinner, that he will be brought to convic- 
tion, and if possible, to confession. Bring his life 
to the test, measuring him by the absolute stand- 
ard of right as seen in the life of Christ. Next 
" rebuke." If in your testing of men's lives they 
fall short of the absolute right as manifested in 
the Scriptures, rebuke sharply. Sting them! 
Pour in the law ! Let them have a view of hell 
and the calamitous wrath of Almighty God! 
Then " exhort." The word means rather to 
comfort or encourage. After the law comes the 
gospel. Pour in oil upon the wounds thyself 
hath made. Point the sinner, weeping at the 
sight of the wrath of God; point him now to the 
Lamb of God. Point him to the gospel of peace, 
and the " Come, thou blessed," of the Christ. It 
is this which moves, and one of the causes of the 
deplorable lack of power in the gospel to-day is 
that the proper stress is not laid upon eternal 
truth. 

Two generations or more ago the main theme 
of the pulpit was the terror of the Lord. Many 
were the warnings against judgment to come. 
But the age in which we live seeks to forget these 
things, for there is nothing more offensive to the 
natural man than the idea of judgment, and so 



WHO SHALL BE ABLE TO STAND? 8l 

he has labored hard to convince himself that there 
is no such thing. 

But when the ostrich hides her head in the 
sand that does not mean that the danger is past. 
An editor in Richmond, Va., tells the following 
story, and vouches for its truth. He says that 
there was an old negro in his city who was ar- 
rested for striking his wife with an axe. He re- 
mained in jail for three months before his trial 
came off. When he was brought to trial, the 
judge said, " Well, old man, have you anything 
to say?" "Jedge," said the prisoner, "every- 
thing what these white folks says is so. I done 
hit her with the axe; but I have been in jail now 
nearly three months, and have had time to think 
it all over, and jedge, I've about decided to let 
the matter drap." Even though we may desire 
it to be otherwise^ we still have God to reckon 
with, and he has solemnly forewarned us that sin 
and punishment are closely tied together. 

Hence, you will find that prophets and apostles 
warned men of judgment to come. It was this in 
the preaching of Paul that caused Felix to trem- 
ble. It was because Paul knew the terror of the 
Lord that he was so anxious to persuade men. 
This phase of truth was also often upon the lips 
of our blessed Saviour, for he said, " Except ye 
repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Indeed, it 



82 life's to-morrows 

is part of the very purpose for which the Holy 
Spirit has come into this age as the representative 
of the Godhead in the work of salvation, that he 
may convict the world in respect of sin and of 
righteousness and of judgment. This is not the 
only phase of the gospel that a minister should 
present to his people, but it is an important phase. 
He may prefer to tell of the love of God, and 
to linger lovingly about the grace of God in the 
salvation of the sinner, but it is his also to tell 
this other truth, that all men shall even yet stand 
before the judgment-seat of Christ. A woman 
was once visiting a life-saving station on the 
coast of Massachusetts, and seeing the awkward 
looking breeches-buoy, asked the captain, " Do 
people, especially ladies, ever object to trusting 
their lives to this thing? Do they ever think it 
beneath their dignity? " With a quizzical smile 
the old man replied, " Well, marm, we don't ask 
if it suits 'em. Saving's our business. ,, 

I. Whatever else we may say about it, judg- 
ment to come is a fact with which we have 
to deal, " for we must all appear before the 
judgment-seat of Christ." 

The Scriptures intimate that the hand of God 
is seen in the acts and processes of everyday life, 
so that Jesus could say, " For judgment am I 



WHO SHALL BE ABLE TO STAND? 83 

come into this world." There is such a thing as 
a spiritual judgment, according to which each 
individual is often judged of God. " He that 
belie veth not is judged already, because he hath 
not believed on the name of the only begotten 
Son of God." A man, or a social custom, or a 
nation is always judged whenever it is brought 
face to face with the fact of Christ, for just be- 
cause he had come into the world and the world 
had been brought into contact with himself, Jesus 
could say, " Now is the judgment of this world." 

It is also freely admitted that there is a judg- 
ment that takes place at death, whereby each one 
" goes to his own place." 

But with all this admitted, it does not mean 
that there is no such thing as a future judgment, 
awful and final, which is to be a complete vin- 
dication of God's righteousness. For there is 
to be a special time in the future, and after 
death, a judgment that is to be outward and vis- 
ible, an entirely different thing from God's 
providences in history. 

We are told also who is to appear before this 
supreme assize of God. There is something more 
or less vague to the superficial reader of the Bible 
about the judgment, for in some places it would 
seem to teach a general judgment, as in the 
twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, while in others 



84 life's to-morrows 

it seems that only the wicked are to be judged, 
and that the righteous escape, as in the twentieth 
chapter of Revelation. These statements are 
really not hard to reconcile, for we understand 
that at the appearing of the Saviour the saints 
will be caught up to meet him in the air, accord- 
ing to the teaching of Paul in the fourth chapter 
of 1 Thessalonians. It is then that the believers 
appear before him to receive according to what 
they have done. Ah, one might ask, are the 
saints judged and punished? They are judged, 
but not punished. The fire tries their works — of 
what sort they are. They rest upon the founda- 
tion of Jesus, and so are saved; but it is to be 
determined whether their works shall stand, and 
so they receive their awards of place, dignity, 
and authority in proportion to their characters 
and their labors for the cause of the Lord Jesus. 
From this searching examination no Christian is 
to be exempt. 

Then, we understand, according to the teach- 
ing of the twentieth chapter of Revelation, after 
the thousand years of the joint rule of Jesus and 
his saints shall be ended, the great white throne 
shall be set, and before it are to be gathered the 
wicked dead. This is the day of the wrath of 
our God, when judgment shall be shown toward 
every wicked work, and when those whose names 



WHO SHALL BE ABLE TO STAND? 85 

are not written in the Lamb's book of life are to 
be cast into the lake of fire. This is the second 
death — awful and irretrievable. For this the 
devils and wicked men are reserved. 

This is not an arbitrary thing with God, but it 
is a necessary part of the great scheme of things 
inaugurated at creation. " We must all appear 
before the judgment-seat/' and that must is not 
merely a complementary word used in order to 
make the compound verb. It is the translation 
of an important word in the original statement 
by the writer, which says that the judgment is a 
necessary thing. We cannot, perhaps, understand 
all that is suggested by it, but we do know that it 
is necessary to vindicate God's justice and to 
settle the inequalities of life in this present world. 
And in a later chapter, perhaps, we will see that 
it is necessary also in other directions. 

II. Jesus Christ is to be the final judge, for 
while God is " the Judge of all," he has especially 
intrusted this judicial function to the Son, " be- 
cause he is a son of man." Thus the One who 
satisfied the law is himself to be the judge as 
to whether individual men have received the re- 
conciliation made possible for all men by his 
work upon the cross. His perfect humanity will 
assure all men that there is tenderness and mercy 



86 life's to-morrows 

with God. His human nature will assure all men 
of the ground of judgment, for the very sight of 
him will remind men of the cross. And this will 
cause all men to rest satisfied with his right- 
eous awards. It is good that he is to be the 
judge, for only the good and pure can perfectly 
sympathize with the sinful and depraved. 

And yet the presence of Christ as judge need 
not make us think that he will not be actuated 
by perfect justice in dispensing the awards of the 
day of judgment. Let no one think that it will 
be easy to evade the demands of the law at that 
time. Even while upon earth in his former 
humble life, Jesus was capable of stern words 
of judgment against sin and of strong feeling 
against sinners and hypocrites. And we are told 
that when the final day of judgment is to come, 
the great people of the earth will call upon the 
mountains and the rocks to fall upon them and 
hide them from the wrath of the Lamb, " for the 
great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be 
able to stand? " 

III. As to the basis of the judgment, we are 
told that it is to be for each man " according to 
what he hath done." It is not an arbitrary or 
optional matter with the judge. Nor is it a mere 
judgment according to works, as if men were 



WHO SHALL BE ABLE TO STAND? 87 

saved by being good. It is to be a decision 
founded upon an estimate of character as illus- 
trated and proved by conduct. We have read 
somewhere of a man who was converted as the 
result of a dream, in which it seemed to him that 
he appeared before God on the occasion of the 
judgment day, and he saw the great multitude 
before the throne, one after another, go up to the 
book of God's law, and tearing open their bosoms 
before it, as one would tear open the bosom of his 
shirt, compare what was in the heart with what 
was written there. According to whether they 
agreed or not, they passed with happiness to the 
company of the blest, or went with waitings to 
the company of the damned. No word was 
spoken. The Judge sat silent upon his throne. 
Ah, too true is it that in an essential sense the 
judgment of the final day will be a matter of 
self-condemnation. 

IV. Such is the teaching concerning the day of 
judgment. Now that it has been reviewed, what 
is to be the effect? The heralding of this essen- 
tial part of the evangel of Christ in the olden 
times always brought results. It caused guilty 
Felix to tremble, and it caused a division in the 
ranks of the gay and worldly Athenians, so that 
while the majority turned back to their heathen- 



88 life's to-morrows 

ism, " certain men clave unto Paul and believed." 
So should it always bring men to repentance. 
And, let it be remembered, it should drive the one 
who tells it to greater earnestness, for it was one 
who had just written about this great truth who 
said, " Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, 
we persuade men, but we are made manifest unto 
God." And it is only a moment later that he 
bursts forth, " We beseech you on behalf of 
Christ, be ye reconciled to God." If there is a 
judgment to come, it is the part of wisdom to flee 
for refuge. It is impossible to escape from God. 
I read a strange story not long since in a Balti- 
more paper concerning a miner who had recently 
been blown to pieces by a freak stroke of light- 
ning that pursued him half a mile under the sur- 
face of the earth. This miner, named Martin 
Stevens, while absolutely brave and without a 
taint of cowardice, had nevertheless a strange 
fear of lightning, which he could neither control 
nor conceal. Whenever a storm would approach 
he would lose no time in making for shelter. One 
August day, two years ago, when such a storm 
was seen to approach and lightning was playing 
about the sky, Stevens sought safety in one of the 
recesses of the mine until the storm should pass. 
To divert his mind he began work as soon as he 
reached the bottom of the mine, and made prep- 



WHO SHALL BE ABLE TO STAND? 89 

arations for the discharge of a blast that required 
only slight attention to cause the explosion. With 
his return to work he forgot the storm. Sud- 
denly there came a blinding flash and a terrific 
roar. The blast had exploded, and the body of 
the luckless miner was torn to atoms. Investi- 
gation showed that the lightning had struck the 
electric wire on the outside of the mine, and by it 
had been led hundreds of feet into the mine, 
where it crossed with the discharge wire that 
Stevens was using, and the explosion followed. 
Death was instantaneous. Even so it is impossible 
to escape God. 

Perhaps you have read the story of the de- 
struction of Pompeii as told by Dion Cassius. 
He says that the populace were at the amphi- 
theater, gazing perhaps with bated breath into 
the dust and blood of the arena or yelling ap- 
proval at the stroke of some gladiator's sword, 
when suddenly the animals refused to fight, and 
made so great an uproar in the dens below that 
the astonished people looked up and away and 
beheld the awful declaration of their doom in 
the darkening sky. Without warning a column 
of smoke had burst from neighboring Vesuvius, 
and it rose high in the autumn sky, expanding 
and assuming the shape of a gigantic pine tree, 
hiding the face of the sun and casting a weird 



90 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

shadow for many miles. In that fated city bread 
was in the ovens and meat and fowl were half 
cooked when this apparition suddenly came upon 
them. In one house a banquet table was spread 
for a feast. The darkness deepened into the 
blackness of night, while terrific flashes of light- 
ning came from the sulphurous clouds, and the 
great earth reeled and rocked. Then destruc- 
tion came upon the struggling thousands, and the 
fair city was blotted from the face of the earth. 
So will destruction come suddenly and without 
hope for those who live at ease and disregard 
God and despise the blood of his only begotten 
Son. 



VI 

JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN 



"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, be- 
lieve also in me. In my Father's house are many man- 
sions; if it were not so, I would have told you; for 
I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare 
a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto 
myself ; that where I am, there ye may be also/' John 
14 :*-3- 



VI 



JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN. A CONTEMPLATION 
OF THE GLORIES OF HEAVEN 

I HAVE heard of a church on the front of 
which was carved, " This is the gate of 
heaven." Just under this a sign was placed, on 
which one could read, " Closed during the sum- 
mer months." This is a sign of the tendency of 
the age. The churches do not have as much to 
do with heaven as they formerly did, and the 
ministers but rarely preach about it. A prayer 
for the attainment of a blessed hereafter 
sounds like a survival of a time-worn phrase, 
and a sermon on heaven is getting to be an 
anachronism. 

It has not always been so. Heaven was a fa- 
vorite theme with the fathers, and many were 
the hearts that used to swell with emotion at the 
bare thought of the bliss in store for the re- 
deemed. It is true that those were the days when 
material views of heaven prevailed, and men took 
the Bible literally, and all believed in the gates of 
pearl and the streets of gold and the great white 
throne of God. But there are many now who ex- 

93 



94 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

plain away these literal words, and say that such 
material conceptions of heaven are unworthy. 
The result is that we are becoming unwilling to 
allow the existence of anything that we cannot 
see either with the telescope or the microscope, 
and we have been busy pushing back the bounds 
of space in our search for knowledge. Now 
we know so much about the heavens that there 
is no room left for heaven. The theory has be- 
come popular that after all we are our own 
heaven. Character is all; a man makes in this 
world his own destiny. It is urged that heaven 
is not a place, but a state. 

What has become of heaven? 

Nothing ! But I fear that much has happened 
to the faith of the Christian world, for we have 
these many years been trying to exchange faith 
for knowledge. We take the words of our 
Saviour, " In my Father's house are many man- 
sions," and we turn to science or philosophy to 
verify them, whereas it would beautifully become 
faith simply to accept them. Not to such sources 
should we go for truth about the home of God, 
but to the word of revelation given to teach us 
concerning the great realities of the world to 
come. Like a miner with a lamp upon his hat, 
going into the mine to dig for riches, so should 
we, with faith in our hearts to light the way, turn 



JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN 95 

to the Bible for the truth on this great subject. 
If the Bible cannot tell us about these great re- 
alities that lie out beyond the grave, no man can. 

As we turn, first, to the words spoken by the 
Saviour on the night before his death we read, 
" Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe in 
God, believe also in me. In my Father's house 
are many mansions: if it were not so, I would 
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will 
come again, and receive you unto myself; that 
where I am, there ye may be also." From these 
words we learn : 

i. That the reality of heaven is the burden of 
this revelation of the Saviour's. 

2. That the happiness of heaven is the comfort 
here offered to burdened hearts ; and 

3. That the attainment of heaven is put as the 
supreme result of faith in Jesus Christ. 

In other words, heaven is a fact, and it is with 
this fact that Jesus seeks to lay peace to the 
troubled hearts of the disciples, and it is for the 
attaining of heaven that he exhorts them, " Ye 
believe in God, believe also in me." 

I. It is not, of course, true that the words of 
the Bible are our only source of belief in the exist- 
ence of heaven. The universal longing of the 



g6 life's to-morrows 

human heart is, as we have seen, a prophecy of 
the truth. Truth is catholic; error is sectional. 
The human family has come into the world with 
certain well-defined beliefs, and God has estab- 
lished in his universe the great realities to cor- 
respond with these hopes and faiths of his chil- 
dren. The existence of God, the reality of sin, 
the efficacy of sacrifice, the immortality of the 
soul, a state of blessedness beyond the grave for 
those who have lived righteously in this world; 
these are but parts of that mental furnishing with 
which God has sent man into this life. That 
which forms a part of the universal belief of the 
human race is itself a part of the truth in God's 
universe. 

All men have believed in a life of happiness 
beyond the grave. Their ideas have been in 
many cases inexact, in others exaggerated, and in 
others still they have been false. The Greeks 
looked forward to an existence among the islands 
of the blest, where they should spend eternity in 
the gardens of the gods. The Turks think the 
chief felicity of the faithful is to be the presence 
of the dark-eyed houris in paradise. The In- 
dians looked forward to the time when they could 
pass to the happy hunting-grounds of the Great 
Spirit. The Eskimos think they will spend eter- 
nity seated around huge pots filled with smoking 



JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN 97 

walrus fat, where they can forever eat blubber to 
their hearts' content. 

These insufficient and false ideas about heaven 
do not disprove its existence. They only prove 
it all the stronger, for all these peoples are dimly 
conscious of a great truth toward which they are 
groping, and each nation identifies heaven with 
its own idea of happiness. 

But after all it is well to turn from these con- 
siderations to the Bible. But when we do so and 
seek to interrogate the book we do not find just 
what we want. The Bible is a book of consum- 
mate wisdom. If I might say it reverently, Jesus 
was too great an artist to attempt the impossible. 
In his words, as recorded in the Scriptures, we 
have cries of anguish from the lost, but never a 
word of even attempted description of the bliss 
in the heart depths of the redeemed. Dives calls 
out in hell, complains of his anguish, and speaks 
of his tormenting flame, but Lazarus, in the 
bosom of Abraham, has never a word to say. 
The Holy Spirit has drawn a curtain over the 
happiness of heaven. It is too deep, too sacred 
for utterance. 

But here is a man to whom in visions splendid 
the Holy City was seen coming down from God 
out of heaven, adorned as a bride for her husband. 
To John, upon Patmos, was it given to tell the 



98 life's to-morrows 

things he saw. He tells .its very measurements. 
To him let us go to inquire about heaven. Alas, 
even John in the Apocalypse, in describing 
heaven, found the marvelously subtle Greek lan- 
guage so barren of words with which to describe 
its felicity that he was forced to content himself 
with saying what it was not, rather than what it 
was. No sun, no moon, no temple, no night, no 
lamp, no death, no sorrow; but little of what it 
really was, save that God was to wipe away all 
tears, and the saints were to see his face and serve 
him forever! 

But there is another man to whom we may 
turn for enlightenment, for instead of heaven 
coming down in all its beauty to Paul upon the 
earth, he was caught up to paradise, and beheld 
it in all its mystery. And now he writes about 
it, and surely he will tell the things he saw and 
heard. Not he! What he heard he says were 
" unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a 
man to utter.' ' And so the bliss of paradise 
remains ineffable to this day. 

But there are some things that the Bible does 
tell us. It says, for one thing, that heaven is a 
place. " In my Father's house" " I go to pre- 
pare a place for you," " We have a building of 
God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens." And Jesus taught us to pray, " Our 



JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN 99 

Father which art in heaven/' Of course char- 
acter has much to do with heaven, as there can 
be no heaven without it ; but heaven is more than 
a state or condition of character. It is a place. 

As to where that place is, no man can say, 
because the Bible does not say. And yet it can 
be located with pretty tolerable accuracy. It is 
where Jesus is to-day, for the glorified body of 
Christ is somewhere within the universe of things 
this moment and where he is, is heaven. 

And it is a large place. " In my Father's house 
are many mansions." There is room for all who 
will come. 

And from the Bible we know that our life in 
heaven will be one of vastly enlarged knowledge, 
" For now we see in a mirror darkly ; but then 
face to face : now I know in part ; but then shall 
I know fully even as also I was fully known." 
The mystery of suffering will there be explained. 
The reason for our unanswered prayers (as we 
understand unanswered prayers ; there is no such 
thing, of course, as a prayer that is not answered) 
will there be made apparent, and all the mysteries 
of redemption, prophecy, and types, and hidden 
truths — all these will be plain to the redeemed 
children of God. 

The life in heaven will also be characterized 
by continuous and worthy activities. It will not 

LOFC. 



IOO LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

be heaven to fold the hands and spend eternity in 
inglorious idleness, though there is an epitaph 
in England that would seem to indicate that one 
person, at least, thought that such would be the 
case. On the tomb of a woman over there is 
carved the following : 

Here lies a poor woman who always were tired, 
For she lived in a world where too much were required. 
" Do not weep for me, friends," she said, " for I'm going 
Where there'll neither be sweeping nor washing nor 

sewing. 
Do not weep for me now, do not weep for me never, 
For I'm going to do nothing for ever and ever." 

That is not a true conception of heaven, 
though it is true as far as it goes. " Blessed are 
the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: 
yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from 
their labors; for their works follow with them." 
To die in the Lord means to rest from " labors," 
that heavy toil that is so hard to perform, and 
which wrings the manhood from one and makes 
him less a man at the close of the day than he 
was at its beginning. This we lay down at the 
end of life's journey. But there is another kind 
of work that is not hard, nor exacting, nor wast- 
ing, but which brings out the best that is in us. 
This follows with us into the other life, for it 
would not become the children of God to be in- 



JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN IOI 

active. The saints in glory will still be possessed 
of character, will power, and responsibility, and 
their life will be a genuine life of moral activities, 
for there will be many opportunities for service 
in the city of our God. Our personalities in 
heaven will be the same as they are on earth, pos- 
sessed with the faculties and powers that here 
are ours. Were these given us to be useless 
through all the eternities? 

You go into an artist's studio, and all about 
the walls are sketches and fragments of pictures. 
You say, " Do you call this man an artist?" 
But your friend replies, " You are only in his 
studio. These are only his unfinished sketches. 
If you want to know what he can do, you must 
go to the art galleries where his finished works 
are gathered." So with the work of God. This 
world is his studio, and here we see only his un- 
finished work — his sketches. The completed 
picture is taken to a higher gallery. 

II. Notice now the purpose with which Jesus 
brought this whole matter to the attention of his 
loved ones. He was alone with his followers the 
last night he would be with them before his death. 
The shadow of the grave had fallen across the 
room in which they were gathered. They were 
under the pall of a great gloom. Not only so, 



102 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

but Jesus had said that one of them should be- 
tray him. That brought much anxious self-ex- 
amination, as each looked into his own heart to 
see if there were the possibility there of such a 
heinous sin. And finally, having passed the sop 
to one of them, in a moment that one arose and 
left the room, only Jesus said to him before he 
left, " What thou doest, do quickly/' They did 
not exactly understand him, but somehow they 
associated it with what he had just said, and that 
made their despondency all the greater. No 
sooner had Judas left than Jesus turned to the 
one whom they all most delighted to honor, next 
to the son of Mary himself, and told him that 
before the cock should crow he would deny him, 
his Lord, thrice. And that brought still more 
sorrow into their hearts. 

In all Jerusalem, nay in all the world from 
the beginning of things to the present day, you 
would not find a sorrier company than that little 
group of eleven men, shivering at their very 
hearts, gathered about that One with the clear 
eye and the intrepid soul. What caused them 
most sorrow was the word he had just spoken, 
that he would soon leave them. They were in the 
valley of the shadow of death ! 

It is in that very moment of heart-sorrow and 
heaviness that he says to them, " Let not your 



JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN IO3 

heart be troubled. Listen to me. I am going to 
heaven and will prepare a place for you there, 
and will then come and take you to myself in 
that blessed place where separations cease forever, 
and troubles are no more. I will be with you 
again in that better land, never to leave you 
more." It was what he said to them about heaven 
that brought comfort to their troubled hearts, and 
made them look up again into the Master's face 
and take courage. 

And it is the thought of heaven that always 
brings comfort to the troubled soul. Because it 
is there that we receive the crown. Here we 
have sorrows and troubles and misunderstand- 
ings. There is the place of the rewards. And 
what a man will receive will be commensurate 
with what the man deserves. " My reward is 
with me, to render each man according as his 
work is." 

But even greater comfort comes from the con- 
ception that heaven is to be a place of blessed 
companionship. There we are to be restored to 
the loved one whom we had lost for a while, and 
look again into eyes that had once been filled 
with love for us. 

*T is sweet as year by year we lose 
Friends out of sight, in faith to muse 
How grows in paradise our store, 



104 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

Who of us all but has many dear ones whom 
it will be bliss to greet on that fair shore ? 

The members of the early church in the city of 
Thessalonica were in great trouble. They be- 
lieved, according to the teaching of the Apostle 
Paul, that the Lord Jesus would come again, and 
were looking for his appearing at any moment. 
But they were disturbed about their loved ones 
who had fallen asleep in Jesus. What part would 
they have in that great hour? To them Paul 
wrote, saying that when Christ should come, all 
the saints who had fallen asleep would have an 
actual part in the coming of the King, for they 
would rise from the grave and be, together with 
those of us who may be alive at that time, for- 
ever with the Lord. They were not to be left 
outside. The heaven to come is to be character- 
ized by glad reunions, " and so shall we ever be 
with the Lord." When he had so said, he added : 
" Wherefore, comfort one another with these 
words." 

But the delight of the glad reunion of friend 
with friend will be surpassed by that greater hap- 
piness of being with the Lord. His will be the 
face first sought, and to God, through Christ, the 
first praise will be given. His love will make our 
heaven. 

A mother was trying to soothe her dying child 



JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN 105 

by talking to it about heaven. She spoke of the 
glory there, though her own heart was breaking, 
and dwelt upon the brightness all around and the 
shining countenances of the holy angels, when 
presently a weak voice stopped her, as the child 
said, " I should not like to be there, mother, for 
the brightness hurts my eyes." 

Then she changed the subject of her descrip- 
tion and spoke of the beautiful songs, and of the 
harpers harping before the throne, and of the 
voices which are as the sound of many waters, 
when the child said, " Mother, I can't bear any 
noise." 

Grieved at her failure to speak words of com- 
fort, the mother reached over and took the rest- 
less sufferer from its bed and enfolded it in her 
arms with all the tenderness of a mother's love. 
Then as the little child lay there, pillowed upon 
the breast of its mother, close to all it loved best 
in the world, it whispered, " Mother, if heaven 
is like this, Jesus may take me there." 

And it is like that! To lie close to the heart 
of the great Father-God, to be enfolded forever 
in the arms of his love purposes, and to see his 
face forever and serve him; that's heaven! 

III. There is nothing more important for mor- 
tal man than to enter that eternal home. And 



106 life's to-morrows 

Jesus tells how to attain to that blissful hope. 
It is one of the supreme results of faith in him- 
self. In immediate connection with what he says 
about that place that he is to prepare for them 
he said, " Ye believe in God, believe also in me." 
I know of nothing more pathetic than the way in 
which Jesus begged his followers to have faith 
in him. Here at the very close of his three years 
of companionship with them he must needs beg 
them, " Have faith also in me." It was the lack 
of faith that always rendered his work nugatory. 
It was the presence of unexpected faith that al- 
ways made his heart glad. Certainly he might 
have expected that his own disciples would have 
faith, and yet he is forced to beg them, " Have 
faith in me." Let us, O beloved, have faith in 
him, and so attain to this blessed hope of a home 
with him forever. 

Cicero had three summer villas and a winter 
palace, but it will be enough for us if we can have 
just this one home with Jesus. If we have faith 
in him and are trying to serve him, we already 
occupy intimate relationship to that future home, 
for we are told that " our citizenship is in 
heaven." To him who possesses that citizenship, 
death will be but going home, the embarkation of 
the soul for the heavenly land. Down off Cape 
Cod is the country home of Daniel Webster, 



JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN 107 

Buried beside him in the graveyard there is the 
body of his wife, with this inscription upon the 
tombstone, "Let me go; the day is breaking." 
To all who love God, death will be but the dawn- 
ing of a new day, wherein the voice will be heard 
which says, " Come up higher." 

How many of us have such a dwelling-place 
with God? If you have not, O friend, lay up for 
yourself treasures in heaven. The treasures of 
earth will soon pass away for you. How passing 
important will it be to you in that day to have a 
home in the presence of God! You cannot have 
such a home unless you prepare for it in advance. 

On your way to Asheville, in the mountains of 
North Carolina, you pass through the Swannanoa 
tunnel, and just after you pass through the train 
stops at a little station. If you will look down 
by the side of the train you will see that there is 
a little ditch by the side of the railroad, and if 
it has just rained, you will see a little stream of 
water running back through the tunnel. Watch 
now as the train moves along. In a moment you 
will see that the water is running in the opposite 
direction. If you cared to do so you could stoop 
by the side of that little streamlet, and taking a 
pebble could turn it in the opposite direction ; and 
having done so, you could move your pebble a 
few feet away and turn it back toward its orig- 



108 life's to-morrows 

inal journey. A clod of dirt a few inches, more 
or less, on either side of a falling drop of rain 
determines whether it will finally find its destiny 
in the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. 
Of such tremendous importance is it that the 
direction be determined in time ! 



VII 
IS PUNISHMENT ETERNAL? 



u Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, De- 
part from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is 
prepared for the devil and his angels. . . And these shall 
go away into eternal punishment: but the righteous into 
eternal life." Matt. 25 : 41, 46. 

"He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness 
still: and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still: and 
he that is righteous, let him do righteousness still: and he 
that is holy, let him be made holy still" Rev. 22 : 11. 



VII 

IS PUNISHMENT ETERNAL? AN INQUIRY INTO 
THE FINAL FATE OF THE WICKED 

HELL is not a popular subject. Not only 
do people generally not like to hear it 
discussed, but preachers do not like to discuss it. 
Personally I had far rather speak about heaven 
and God's free grace bestowed upon guilty sin- 
ners. But it is part of the minister's duty also 
to warn men of the wrath to come, and so we 
come at last to the question, " Is punishment 
eternal ?" 

Something like a generation ago there was a 
reaction against the old-fashioned hell of literal 
fire and brimstone, led in England by Canon Far- 
rar and in America by Henry Ward Beecher. 
Their views on this subject became quite popular. 
About the same time Moody began to preach ex- 
clusively upon the love of God, and great re- 
vivals followed, when other evangelists began to 
follow his example. Then the ministry in gen- 
eral began to preach upon the newly popular 
theme — the love of God — and have been preach- 
ing upon it ever since. The result is that the 

hi 



112 LIFE'S TO-MORROWS 

new generation of people has heard from the 
pulpit only one part of the gospel message, and 
a new people have arisen who have no adequate 
conception of the exceeding sinfulness of sin 
and no fear of its consequences. This has re- 
sulted in a great indifference to the condition of 
the lost on the part of the members of the 
churches, while sinners themselves feel all the 
security of the saints. To-day there is a general 
lack of wholesome fear of sin. It is not possible 
any longer to have a great revival. Mr. Moody 
had the foundation of a terrible hell upon which 
to build his revival effort, for the ministry for 
centuries before his day had preached hell in all 
its literalness. Men generally had a good appe- 
tite for something different. There is nothing 
more important than a restatement of the truth 
about the punishment of the wicked. 

I. But it is exceedingly important that the 
study of such a subject be approached in a be- 
coming manner. It should be discussed with 
proper solemnity. No more awful subject could 
possibly engage our thoughts. Hell is no subject 
for jokes. And it should be studied dispassion- 
ately. There should be no prejudice in the heart 
of him who would investigate such a subject. 

But above all, it should be discussed with all 



IS PUNISHMENT ETERNAL? II3 

possible love and tenderness. Robert McCheyne 
asked a friend what his text had been the Sunday 
before, and he replied, " The wicked shall be 
turned into hell, with all the nations that forget 
God/' when McCheyne said, " O my brother, I 
hope that you got grace to speak about it ten- 
derly." No man ought ever to preach about hell 
without a sob in his voice, and without something 
of that broken utterance that characterized the 
Son of man, when he said to the fated city, " O 
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, . . how often would I 
have gathered thy children together, even as a 
hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and 
ye would not!" In this spirit let us approach 
this study together, for we are as much concerned 
in the consideration of the punishment of the 
wicked as in the bliss of the redeemed. 

I suppose there is no questioning among us of 
the fact that evil men are to be punished, for 
" though hand join in hand, yet are the wicked 
punished." The only questions relate to the na- 
ture of that punishment, the place, and the extent 
of it. Some say that all of such punishment is in 
this present world, others that it occurs at the mo- 
ment of death, while others say that it is to be in 
the world to come, either for a short time, a 
longer time, or for eternity. 

In the settling of such momentous questions 



114 LIFE S TO-MORROWS 

we cannot trust to fancy or speculation. We may 
not allow ourselves to be lured into the fields of 
philosophy. We must make our appeal directly 
to the word of God. When we go to the Bible, 
a great surprise is in store for us, for we are 
amazed to find that it has so much to say upon 
this subject. If it has little to say of direct de- 
scription of heaven, it has much to say about hell. 
The writers of that book had no sympathy with 
the fastidious squeamishness of our twentieth 
century. Jesus said more about hell than about 
heaven, and had terrible things to say upon that 
dread theme, even with a little child in his arms. 

II. Upon appealing to the Bible, we learn that 
hell consists primarily in absence from God, for 
the King shall say to those on the left hand, 
" Depart from me, ye cursed," . . . " And these 
shall go away into eternal punishment/' Hell is 
the place where God is not. Its essential nature 
is found in the absence of all good. It is the 
very place for those who like to put God out of 
their minds, and for those who refuse to have 
Christ Jesus reign over them. The Holy Spirit 
exercises no restraining influences there. Sin 
will have a free hand. 

But it is also a place of punishment in addition 
to its being a place characterized by absence from 



IS PUNISHMENT ETERNAL? II5 

God, for we read in the fourteenth chapter of 
Revelation that " the smoke of their torment 
goeth up for ever and ever." Because God must 
smite sin wherever he finds it. He would smite 
our sin here and now, only for a while he has 
determined to treat the sinner separately from 
his sin, because he is so anxious to save the 
sinner, though he hates his sins. So — and this 
is the offer of the gospel — God will save the 
sinner if he only turn away from his sins and 
leave them, and these sins thus repented of will 
form a part of that great burden of world-sin 
which was smitten in the person of Jesus when 
upon the cross, " He was made sin " on our be- 
half. God smote the sins of the world in the 
person of the Redeemer of the world. But if an 
individual sinner will not have it so, and clings 
to his sin and insists upon carrying it with him 
up to God's throne at last, upon himself be his 
own blood. He renders it impossible for God to 
smite his sin without smiting the sinner with it. 
And God must smite sin. It is his nature to. 
And so when in hell the sinner and his sins are 
identified, upon the two together, now one 
through the choice of the man who sinned, falls 
the eternal judgment of the great God. And 
this is why hell is a place of punishment. God 
would have it otherwise, but evil men will have 



n6 life's to-morrows 

it so. They simply will not turn away from their 
sins and allow them to be smitten separately from 
themselves the sinners. 

There are two figures especially used to de- 
scribe the awful nature of this punishment. One 
of these is the figure of fire. Much is said on 
this in both the Old and the New Testaments. 
This is the figure employed by Jesus in his par- 
able of the Rich Man and Lazarus to describe the 
tortures endured by the rich man in hades, or 
hell. " But," you may say, " that is only a 
figure." Yes, it is only a figure, but a figure is 
always less than a fact. A speaker wants to tell 
an audience about the fearful nature of a storm 
he saw at sea. But the people in his audience have 
never seen the sea, and so he must use certain fig- 
ures to describe this scene, but all of them fall 
short of the reality. He cannot make the picture 
real to these people, who have never seen the 
greatness of the ocean nor experienced its mys- 
tery and majesty. So is it always. The use of a 
figure of speech is a confession of weakness. He 
who uses tropes and metaphors in so doing de- 
clares that he cannot do justice to the matter he 
has in mind. Thus does the Bible use this figure 
of fire. We are not discussing as to whether there 
is literal fire in hell or no. We only know that the 
word of God, in its endeavor to tell how awful are 



IS PUNISHMENT ETERNAL? 117 

the punishments of hell, uses the figure of flame 
eating its singeing, stinging way into human 
flesh, because the pain caused by fire is the worst 
with which man is familiar in this world. If it 
is a figure, how awful must be the fact behind it ! 

The second figure referred to is the figure of 
darkness, for we read in the thirteenth verse of 
Jude about those " for whom the blackness of 
darkness hath been reserved for ever." Christ 
spoke of the children of the kingdom who were 
to be cast out into outer darkness. 

" Ah," says one, " here is a contradiction in 
the infallible word of God! There is to be fire 
and there is to be darkness. It is impossible to 
have the two simultaneously." Perhaps our 
friend has never studied chemistry, and so does 
not know that some chemicals burn with an in- 
visible flame, and yet their burning is most ter- 
rible. " Light is a wave of ether driven hard ; 
but let the waves be driven faster and faster and 
the sight sense fails to take in the luminosity, and 
it becomes darkness, and what a darkness ! " 

And we learn that this punishment is eternal, 
for how often do we read that the condition 
referred to is to be " for ever and ever." 

III. Of course men have objected to such 
doctrine as this, for it does not please them to 



Il8 life's to-morrows 

accept it. One man says, " I believe that God is 
love, and such things are impossible." 

Yes, God is love. His nature is essential love. 
" We love because he first loved us." Never has 
the universe known such love as is characteristic 
of God. But the man who urges God's love as 
the reason why he cannot believe in the punish- 
ment of the wicked does not understand what 
love is. Such a man interprets that love in a way 
far too feeble, thinking that it means simply gra- 
ciousness or complacency. It is understood usu- 
ally as something in God that softens down the 
sterner side of his nature. It is admitted that 
God is a righteous Judge, who will by no means 
clear the guilty, but it is urged in addition that 
he is love, and therefore the severity of his pun- 
ishment will be toned down. But that is entirely 
to miss the essential meaning of love. 

Love is more than complacency or a hesitation 
to punish. Two boys are playing about your 
home, one your own son and the other a neigh- 
bor of his. You will view a dereliction in proper 
conduct in your son's playmate far more com- 
placently than you will such dereliction in your 
own son, because you love your son more than 
you do his little friend. Love is exacting. And 
it is more than that. Love is that emotion within 
one that causes that one to desire to appropriate, 



IS PUNISHMENT ETERNAL? II9 

out of all the world, the one object of love. A 
man declares his love to a woman, and in so do- 
ing declares that of all the world he wants to 
appropriate her to his own life and give himself 
to her. Love is a readiness for self -communica- 
tion. Love is a constant offering of one's self. 
The lover presses himself insistently upon his be- 
loved. So a recent writer has said that God's 
love is God's pressure of himself upon man 
with a view to a closer union. " Love goes forth 
upon the life beyond it and strives to bring that 
life back to its own." Love never lets the loved 
life alone. It is a constant effort to assimilate 
and to appropriate. It is a ceaseless striving to 
help another. 

Now such an emotion as that must have a re- 
sponse, either yes or no. One can be neutral 
toward mere liking; it may be left to spend itself 
as it may. But love demands either yea or nay, 
and will have it. If the answer be nay, it is a 
spurning of the offer of the other, and love itself 
has now become something which the one who 
does not yield to it feels is actually against him. 
It is so because he has set himself against love's 
offer and effort. If a woman is married to a 
man whom she does not love, his very attentions 
become offensive to her, and his efforts to draw 
out her love make her hate him the more. Her 



120 LIFES TO-MORROWS 

home is a miniature hell. God's love to a human 
soul is his constant effort to master and absorb 
that soul, and contribute to its eternal happiness 
by assimilating it with his own life. Such an 
attitude cannot be ignored. One must assume a 
definite attitude toward such love as that. An 
attitude of refusal in its very nature turns God 
into a foe. " God's enmity is but God's arrested 
love." 

And let us not forget, while we are talking 
about God's love for the unrepentant, that God 
also loves the regenerate, those who yield to his 
offer of himself and respond to his ceaseless ef- 
fort to uplift and bless and mold into the good. 
Them must God protect. He must shield them 
from wicked men forever. And he does so by 
taking them to be with himself in his own home, 
just as the lover takes his bride to his home. 
Those who will not respond to his offer of him- 
self are allowed to have their way, and as they 
will not accept his offer of himself, they must 
spend eternity away from him, and that is hell, 
for it is the place where God is not. The peni- 
tentiary represents, not the ill-will of the State 
toward the criminal so much as the care of the 
State for its good citizens. 

In this way hell becomes a mercy to those who 
are lost, for if we have properly explained God's 



IS PUNISHMENT ETERNAL? 121 

love, if those who reject him were to be allowed 
to go to heaven, his love must continue to press 
itself upon them, even in heaven. He cannot 
change. His love is evermore the same. In 
heaven then, God would evermore be pressing 
himself upon those who refused to accept him, 
with a view to closer union. This would be an 
eternal irritant to the unregenerate. It would be 
a mercy to them to be freed from it. They would 
rather go their own way, and not be troubled by 
that which is not welcome to them; and that 
God's loving attentions are not welcome is proven 
by their attitude of rebellion and of constant 
rejection in this life. 

An unprepared soul would not know how to 
appreciate heaven. How would a man whose 
life stood for all that was bad, and who hated 
all that was noble and true — how would such a 
man feel when surrounded by all that is good and 
ennobling? Such a soul would have no compan- 
ionship in heaven. It would be like a wicked man 
always surrounded by people who talk religion 
and sing psalms. He would be miserable. So 
would heaven be a hell for the unprepared. 

Another objection to what we have stated 
about hell is that which is urged by some that 
the punishment of hell is not for men, but for 
the devil, and for a certain class of men who are 



122 LIFES TO-MORROWS 

in close league with him. In support of this no- 
tion they refer to the fourteenth chapter of Reve- 
lation, where " they that worship the beast and 
his image, and whoso receiveth the mark of his 
name," are the ones who are tormented for ever 
and ever. In the twenty-fifth chapter of Mat- 
thew we learn that the punishment of the wicked 
is of the same sort as that which awaits the 
devil and his angels, for in the forty-first verse 
we read that the King will say to those on his 
left, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal 
fire which is prepared for the devil and his an- 
gels." Now, by turning to the twentieth chap- 
ter of Revelation, and tenth verse, we find that 
the punishment of the devil and his angels is that 
they will be tormented for ever and ever. 

There are others still who urge that there is 
no such thing as eternal punishment, for such 
would prove that God is not a being of love and 
kindness. To punish men eternally is to argue 
against the character of God. So by much in- 
genious twisting of the words of Scripture they 
explain away the eternity of such punishment, 
and declare that after having been punished for a 
certain length of time, the wicked are to be an- 
nihilated, and they say that this is proven by the 
use of the term " second death " to describe the 
punishment of the impenitent. But there are 



IS PUNISHMENT ETERNAL? 123 

some who fail to see how this saves God's repu- 
tation for kindness. But their greatest objection 
to such argument is that it has nothing to rest 
upon. The terms " second death/' " destroy," 
" perish," and " lost " are figurative terms, and 
are used in a figurative sense, and no more refer 
to cessation of being in the world to come than 
the term " dead in trespasses and sins " means 
cessation of existence in this world. In fact, it 
is declared in the twentieth chapter of Revelation 
that temporal death itself is to be destroyed be- 
fore the wicked are to be consigned to hell, so 
that those who are in that awful place are no 
more liable to what we now know as death. 

Others still object to the eternal punishment of 
the wicked, saying that they believe that every- 
body will have a second chance in the world to 
come, and that everybody will there repent of 
sins and believe in God and accept his offered 
pardon. They say that death itself is to be one 
of the means to be used of God to bring men to 
repentance, and that finally all are to be restored 
to God, and bow the knee to Jesus Christ, and 
acknowledge him to be Lord of all. It may be 
frankly said in reply that if a man should repent 
even in hell, God would pardon and save, so great 
is the efficacy of Christ's atoning grace. The 
question is, will he? 



124 LIFE'S TO-MORROWS 

Suffering of itself has no reforming power. 
Unless accompanied by the special influences of 
the Holy Spirit, it only hardens the soul. In the 
world to come, it is admitted freely, men will at 
last believe in God and his power, for they will 
have occasion to experience it. But to know 
God as powerful is not to trust him as Father 
and yield to his love for pardon. If men pass out 
of this life without love to God, there is no reason 
to believe that the experience of death will give 
them love to him. Indeed, there is every reason 
to believe just the opposite. As far as God has 
seen fit to reveal the future, we are taught that 
this life only is the scene of probation and oppor- 
tunity. That men may turn from their evil ways, 
God has sent his Spirit into the world to urge 
them toward the good. As far as we know, that 
influence is withdrawn in the moment of death. 
Remember, hell is the place where God is not. 
No influences for good characterize that fearful 
place. If a man hates snakes, it does not make 
him like snakes to bring him close to them. It 
only makes him loath them all the more. If a 
man does not love God, it will not make him love 
God to bring him into contact with the power of 
God in punishment. It will only increase the 
antagonism of his soul toward God. 

In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus 



IS PUNISHMENT ETERNAL? 125 

we read that there was a great gulf fixed between 
the good and the evil in the world beyond the 
grave, so that there might be no passing from 
the place of torment to the place of the redeemed. 
The rich man asked for favors for his brethren, 
but none for himself after he learned of that great 
gulf. He accepted the fixity of his fate. " He 
that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness 
still : and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy 
still/' This would suggest, not only a fixity of 
fate, but an eternal declension in character, for 
in hell men go from bad to worse forever. In- 
deed, the Bible, fairly interpreted, teaches the 
eternal nature of the punishment to be visited 
upon the wicked. The very word used to ex- 
press this eternity is used also to express the 
duration of the bliss of the saints and the extent 
of existence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Spirit. Doctor Morison, a Greek scholar, wanted 
to find some hope in the Bible for those who 
might be lost, so with all his Greek learning he 
examined the Bible, and closed the book, saying 
with a sigh, " There is no hope for the rejecter 
of Jesus Christ." 

IV. In the matter of hell, let it be remem- 
bered that God is not arbitrary, merciless, or un- 
feeling. He has no pleasure in the death of the 



126 life's to-morrows 

wicked. Hell has been thus clearly revealed in 
order that men might escape it. All have the 
same chance. God has no special spite against 
a few. The cause of men's being lost in hell is 
not that they are sinners — for all are sinners — 
but this, that being sinners, they will not be 
saved. They obey not the gospel of the Lord 
Jesus. If a man is lost, he alone, and not God, 
is responsible. 

A man urges that God is good, and so will not 
punish forever. How does one know that God 
is good? From the Bible. But that is the very 
book that declares that God will punish the 
wicked forever. If it is truthful in the one case, 
it is truthful also in the other. God's goodness 
and fatherhood we learn especially from Jesus, 
and it is he that has declared that this Father- 
God will punish those w r ho do not repent and 
believe. 

God is good, but his goodness should lead, so 
we are taught in the Bible, to repentance, and 
not be taken as permission to continue in sin. 
What would you think of a boy whose mother is 
ill through nursing him through a dangerous case 
of diphtheria, and that boy now spends his time, 
because his mother cannot look after him di- 
rectly, but is in bed sick, in doing the very things 
that she has asked him not to do? When re- 



IS PUNISHMENT ETERNAL? 12J 

monstrated with, the boy answers that he is not 
afraid, that his mother has proven her great love 
to him by risking her life for his recovery, and 
indeed her present illness is due to her love. And 
he continues to go on in disobedience because of 
his mother's great love to him. And what do you 
think of wicked men who use the very blood of 
Calvary as an excuse for insults to him who died 
upon the cross? 

The doom of the lost is irrevocable. Sin ruins 
even in this world, and he who is guilty has no 
hope save in the blood of Jesus Christ. Some 
people admit the deadliness of sin in this world, 
but deny it with reference to the world to come. 

Thank God, there is hope in the evangel of 
his Son ! Jesus came into this world to save sin- 
ners. Hell itself does not explain God's hatred 
of sin as much as Calvary does. Through him 
there is hope, but if he be rejected 

Peter Rosegger has written in the German of 
a dream, as follows : " Last night I had this 
dream: The Eternal sat upon the judgment-seat 
and caused the great throng of humanity to pass 
before him. The Judge said to Moses, ' What 
didst thou give to thy people? ' ' The law,' an- 
swered Moses. ' What did they make of it ? ' 
< Sin.' 

" Then he asked Charlemagne, ' What didst 



128 life's to-morrows 

thou give to thy people? ' ' The altar/ answered 
Charlemagne. ' What did they make of it ? ' 
' The stake.' 

" Then he asked Napoleon Bonaparte, ' What 
didst thou give to thy people ? ' ' Glory.' * What 
did they make of it? ' ' Shame.' 

" So he asked of many, and every one made 
complaint that his gift had been dishonored by 
the people. At last the Eternal asked also his 
Only Begotten, ' My beloved Son, what didst 
thou give to men?' 'Peace.' i What did they 
make of it ? ' 

" Christ answered not. With pierced hands he 
hid his face and wept." 



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